


Hey, little lover, stay

by phalangine



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-09-26 20:12:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 27,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20395477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phalangine/pseuds/phalangine
Summary: A collection ofshortmostlyalternate universe fics that don't quite merit being posted on their own (ratings and universe descriptions in individual chapter summaries)





	1. Right is right; rules are rules

**Author's Note:**

> hello and welcome to the latest edition of "i’m too lazy to write full stories so here are the bare bones of some i’d like to see/write but couldn’t finish if i tried to write them fully”
> 
> ty to o-zone and dan balan in particular for the 2000s banger “dragostea din tei” and its english version, from which i stole lyrics for the title

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> t, generic fae universe

Davos watches Stannis argue with Robert and thinks, not for the first time, that the fae have interesting priorities.

“You can’t just abduct humans every time they come near a circle,” Stannis is saying. “You have to wait for them to walk _ into _it first.”

“Why should I do that?” Robert asks. From his tone, his real question is closer to _ Why are you still talking? _

In a strange twist of fate, Davos finds himself thinking the same thing as Stannis’ brother. Their reasons are different, but they’ve arrived at the same place.

Stannis is bristling. “Have you forgotten what happened the last time humans got suspicious?”

Robert tilts his head, feigning consideration. “I suppose I have.”

“Robert.”

_ “King Robert.” _

Stannis grits his teeth, and this is the moment Davos has been watching for.

“I must apologize, Your Majesty,” he says, stepping fully into the room, “but Lord Stannis is being sent for.”

Robert pauses, his eyes glittering as he looks Davos over.

Stannis, who didn’t ask Davos to come along, looks at him with far more skepticism.

“You really did keep your pet, I see,” he observes. It’s difficult to tell whether he’s surprised and pretending not to be or simply pretending to care just to irritate Stannis- fae siblings operate by the same rules as human siblings. “I thought that was just a rumor.”

“Davos is helpful,” Stannis grits.

“I could see Renly doing this; he’s too softhearted for his own good. But you? My joyless brother isn’t supposed to be this interesting.”

Stannis is struggling admirably to follow decorum.

He must know that only encourages his brother, but Stannis is nothing if not up for a fight.

How Robert got the reputation for being the fighter when Stannis is never more than a hair’s breadth away from throwing down the gauntlet is a mystery Davos doubts he’ll ever solve.

“Your Majesty?” he prompts, hoping the novelty of Davos’ existence will distract Robert long enough for Davos to grab Stannis and escape.

He needn’t have bothered.

Robert waves a hand at him. “Yes, yes, of course. Take Stannis to do whatever he stopped doing to harangue me. Cersei’s brothers have arrived, and Stannis will be of no help with outdrinking the younger one. Or,” he adds, “making Jaime feel less like the kingdom’s most handsome prince.”

Stannis bows before he leaves, as any subject should bow to his king.

Davos thinks back to the house he grew up in and tries to imagine having to bow to any of his brothers or sisters.

He can’t remember their faces well enough to imagine them to begin with anymore, so he abandons the exercise.

“Who’s sending for me?” Stannis asks as he strides past Davos.

“I am.”

Stannis comes to an abrupt halt. “Excuse me?”

“I’m the one sending for you,” Davos clarifies, continuing past Stannis just for the rare joy of being the faster one in a world of people with longer legs. He gets to set their path, and he’s taking them right up to Stannis’ quarters. “I wanted you to join me somewhere the king won’t be around to antagonize you- or for you to let him.”

It only takes a moment for Stannis to catch up, but he matches his pace to Davos’, which Davos silently enjoys.

“You don’t need to rescue me from my brother,” Stannis says.

He’s huffy about it, a little more of that fae vanity seeping through, and Davos basks in it. Huffy is good. Huffy is a state of being that doesn’t exist when Robert is around.

“Maybe I was saving him from you.”

Stannis snorts, and Davos lets himself smile. Stannis leans into the mythos around him: dour, humorless, incapable of joy. Davos has seen past it, though; he knows Stannis is simply brooding and overburdened by middle child syndrome.

He thought about sharing his diagnosis with Stannis the other night when Davos and Jon got into one of the stores of wine. They had a reason to be there, but damned if Davos can remember it.

It’s good that he didn’t forget not to suggest to Stannis that he’d be happier if he just let himself accept that he does want people to like him.

Davos startled a bark of a laugh out of him the other day, though, and all it took was pointing out that Joffrey should be careful about who he barks at- Oberyn Martell probably carries a gag on him for the chance to flash at the more conservative members of Robert’s court.

As they continue climbing the stairs to Stannis’ quarters, Stannis sobers.

“You aren’t lonely?” he asks as they turn to take the stairs up, as if he isn’t the lonely one. “Aside from the women Roberts grabs while it suits him, there aren’t many humans here.”

Davos shrugs. “I was a smuggler with a family that already thought he’d died. There’s no one waiting for me, and even if there were, I doubt they’d recognize me.” Nor he them. “I had no purpose in my world.”

“But you do here.”

“I do.”

There’s more to it than that, but Stannis doesn’t listen to words half as much as he listens to actions, so Davos lets the silence stretch until Stannis leads him into Stannis’ bedroom, then yanks him close.

“You gave me a new life,” he says, looking up into Stannis’ face. “A better one. I’m yours.”

Stannis looks down at him with something painfully close to wonder. Then he pushes Davos back until his back hits the door.

“Then you’ll stay by me for as long as I live.”

“You’re immortal,” Davos rasps. “I’m only a man, Stannis.”

“Didn’t I bring you here? You’re my Hand, Davos. I won’t lose you to time.”

From a man, it would be a romantic declaration. From Stannis, it’s simple fact.

Somehow, that makes Davos shiver harder as he pulls Stannis’ head down.


	2. cheerful and willing heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> t, modern au

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "the ancient chronicle of the dominican monastery of st. catherine in pisa records: "eyeglasses, having first been made by someone else, who was unwilling to share them, he [spina] made them and shared them with everyone with a cheerful and willing heart."'  
-wikipedia, on the origin of eyeglasses

The first time Davos sees them, Stannis has been squinting at his computer for nearly an hour. Davos is about to suggest a break- which Davos will take advantage of to increase the font size on the computer- when Stannis sighs and reaches into his desk.

The frames are thin metal, hardly even visible, but Stannis looks at them as if they’re symbolic of something far more than a simple fact Davos has known for years.

Stannis is farsighted.

It isn’t even his age that’s giving him trouble. He’s always had trouble reading from textbooks and computer screens; he’s been grumpy about it since they were in college and Davos was a frat boy there on a scholarship whose big idea for getting the attention of the cute business major with the perpetual scowl was feeding him.

Davos pretends not to watch as the lines in Stannis’ forehead ease the longer he keeps his glasses on. As Stannis lets himself wear them, his mood lifts, and Davos catches himself thinking about how long it’s been since he cooked for them.

xx

“They make me feel old.”

Davos doesn't put his book down. “You’ve needed them since you were eighteen, if not before.”

“They made me feel old then, too.”

Stannis is sulking because he wants to be fussed over but won’t admit it. He’s lucky Davos likes fussing, and he’s doubly lucky to be the person Davos most wants to fuss over.

“They make you look distinguished,” he says, turning onto his side so he can rest his head on his hand and take in the sight of Stannis down to his undershirt but wrapped up in his robe, glasses perched on his nose as he looks over something on his laptop.

“That’s another word for old, Davos.”

“No, it’s another word for handsome.”

Unappeased, Stannis keeps scrolling. 

Davos wiggles closer. “You know-”

“If you make a Superman joke, you’ll be sleeping alone tonight.”

“Actually, I was going to point out that the report you’re looking at isn’t due until Friday, and as it’s Tuesday, I think we can have the night off.”

He waits a long moment for Stannis to get what he’s suggesting.

Stannis doesn’t look up from what he’s doing. “Davos, I know you dislike computers, but we can’t just not do our jobs.”

He still needs these things spelled out, Davos marvels. Stannis is the smartest man Davos knows, but if Davos doesn’t lay out unambiguously that he’s trying to have sex with his husband, Stannis’ beautiful brain will completely zoom past that option.

The moment of confusion between Davos clarifying and Stannis understanding, when Davos can see the wheels turning in Stannis’ head, is especially adorable. Stannis is open and focused as what Davos said filters through Stannis’ thoughts; the look on his face when he realizes Davos has been flirting with him is almost bashful.

It’s hard to resent the rumor mill at work for saying Stannis is unfeeling when it’s ensured Davos has never had to compete to be the only person who sees Stannis make that face.

“I’m not suggesting we not work,” he says, shifting to lay his free hand on Stannis’ knee. “I’m suggesting we take a little break.”

“And we will. I just have to figure out where Snow is getting these figures, because there’s no way he-”

Davos moves his hand up Stannis’ thigh and tugs on the hem of Stannis’ boxers. “Love.”

“Hmm?”

“I’m trying to tell you I like the way the glasses look on you.”

“You’re my husband. Of course you’re going to say that.”

Gods, he really can be obtuse. “Stannis, I was thinking I’d just go to bed tonight, but now you’re wearing those, so now we have two options. Either you set the laptop aside for a bit and fuck me, or I take some things from the bedside table and spend some time on my own in the bathroom before I come back to bed.”

Stannis looks down at Davos sharply, and there the wheels go as Stannis puts everything Davos just said into context.

“You want to-”

“Have sex with you as soon as possible?” Davos finishes for him. “Yes, that’s the option I’m in favor of.”

Stannis blinks. “You like the glasses.”

“I do.”

It’s playing dirty, but Davos has always loved the way Stannis breathes in sharply when Davos runs his thumb over the sensitive skin of Stannis’ inner thigh. His eyes fall shut, too, and Davos feels a rush of affection so strong it hurts.

“So… Any idea which option you’d like?” 

Opening his eyes, Stannis sets his laptop down on his bedside table. “I do have to have something ready to throw at Oberyn tomorrow.”

“Hmm... I guess you better hurry up.”

Stannis has never been able to resist a challenge, and this time isn’t any different.

xx

Davos really likes Stannis’ glasses.

“I’m going to have to buy a pair without lenses, aren’t I?” Stannis asks as he retrieves his laptop and settles it slightly off-kilter so Davos can cuddle up against him. “It’s difficult to do things right when the lenses are fogged over.”

“Sounds good,” Davos mumbles, already half-asleep.

“Don’t expect this every time I wear these,” Stannis adds. “We have work to do, and I need them to do it.”

“Yes, love.”

“Davos.”

“Hmm?”

“I mean it.”

Davos nods, content to let Stannis have the workplace. He can distract Stannis in return on their own time, after all.


	3. peripety

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> e, canon universe
> 
> fun fact: a couple of these aren’t really alternate universe fics (whoops!) but i’m slapping them in here anyway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> peripety (peripeteia): a reversal of circumstances, or turning point

Davos shivers as Stannis kisses the inside of his thigh.

“You do like the beard,” Stannis says, thoughtful.

Davos tries to reply, but Stannis deliberately rubs his cheek against the skin he just kissed, stealing Davos’ thoughts like they’re physical things.

All Davos manages to do is breathe harder.

Stannis shifts to kiss Davos’ other leg, and this time, he uses his teeth.

Davos inhales sharply as Stannis’ beard brushes his skin. It’s grown out and isn’t sharp, though Davos hadn’t minded the stubble as much as he’d wished he had.

Stannis pushes Davos’ legs farther apart as he shifts closer, kissing up the inside of Davos’ thigh to his hip. There, he pauses and looks up at Davos, and Davos can’t help but reach for him, cupping a hand to one cheek.

Stannis allows it, tilting his head into Davos’ palm and kissing the base of Davos’ thumb.

His beard rasps as he does, and makes Davos’ heart starts to beat every day before this was a step in a race.

“I don’t often see you from below,” Stannis tells him.

“Do you not like it?”

Stannis shakes his head. “It’s merely novel. I’ve got no qualms about you from any angle.”

He says it simply because in Stannis’ mind, it is.

Davos clears his throat. Stannis isn’t the only one aware that Davos is sitting on the edge of the table and Stannis on his knees. It feels… not unpleasant but not entirely right. There’s symbolism in it, suggestions Stannis must know- suggestions he must have wrestled with before he let his head ever dip below Davos’.

It’s more than the son of a crabber ought to have. Everything he’s been given exceeds his worth, yet Stannis has given it all to him. Stannis is a good king and a just man; he wouldn’t give Davos more than his due.

Swallowing, Davos asks, “What should I-”

“Allow me this.”

Thrown, Davos blinks down at Stannis in confusion. “Allow you what?”

“To return the service you’ve given me.”

He doesn’t explain further, and Davos has to bite his tongue against the urge to cry out when Stannis kisses the tip of Davos’ cock.

“Stannis-”

There’s a sharp look on Stannis’ face as he lifts his head. “You said this is what you want, Davos. Unless you’ve changed your mind, I intend to continue. Have you?”

Swallowing against the rush of questions, Davos shakes his head.

He must grab Stannis’ hair hard enough to hurt when Stannis takes him in, but when Stannis looks up at him, there’s nothing but victory in his eyes.

_ This isn’t new, _Davos realizes. Stannis has been waging a second, stealthier campaign behind the one against his rivals to the throne, and Davos didn’t notice.

He doesn’t mind losing to Stannis, if that’s how Stannis sees his efforts at laying claim to Davos in every regard. Davos has been his for years; if anything, this is Stannis taking what Davos has been offering to him, albeit not in the way Davos had expected.

There aren’t any other kings who would choose to go to their knees before a lowborn man, not even on the battlefield.

None of them would ask that man to trade his fingertips for a name, nor would they value his loyalty.

Stannis pulls off to suck a mark on Davos’ belly, and Davos is reminded that Stannis learned to bear the world more than to love it. There’s passion and desire in him, though, and as he looks up at Davos, it’s impossible to avoid the realization that this is Stannis reaching beyond his duty and taking something for himself.

He didn’t have to keep Davos at his side after knighting him.

He didn’t have to take Matthos as his scribe.

He didn’t have to make himself the sort of lord- the sort of king- who listens when a lowborn man speaks.

All these things, he’s done for himself.

Davos tugs at Stannis’ tunic until his king lets himself be high up enough for Davos to kiss him.

Stannis’ beard rasps against Davos’ own, and Davos squeezes harder.

Stannis breaks the kiss but stays close, his forehead pressed to Davos’.

There’s still that other war, the one Stannis hasn’t finished, but for the moment, he seems content to take the fruits of this victory.


	4. And it’s dangerous work trying to get to you, too

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> m, something close to a non-magical 20th century au? probably?

_ Stannis is dreaming. He knows he is, just as he knows how this dream will go. _

_ Davos has Stannis on his back, Stannis’ legs spread wide. He traces the line of muscle up Stannis’ inner thigh, and Stannis’ breath catches. Davos doesn’t touch him the way Stannis wants, though; he never does. He leans forward instead, gently rolling his hips as he bends to kiss Stannis’ chest. _

_ There’s a cold rain coming down hard outside, but in Davos’ bedroom, they’re warm and safe from the storm. _

_ Davos touches Stannis’ cheek, his thumb brushing Stannis’ lower lip, and the breath catches in Stannis’ throat again. _

_ He should feel guilty for not keeping chaste, and later, when he’s reminded that this isn’t the life he’s allowed to have, he will. But the world outside it far away, the king separated from Stannis by a shield of rain, and Davos looks at him like he’s never wanted anything more than he wants Stannis. _

_ Stannis’ chest feels too tight as Davos kisses his throat. _

_ There’s no infidelity; Robert hasn’t chosen a woman to match to him. Stannis can’t dishonor what doesn’t exist. _

_ It, like all his excuses, has been worn smooth from use. _

_ Davos rolls his hips again, and Stannis digs his fingers into Davos’ shoulders. _

_ Davos always likes to talk, and here, in the safety of his ancient bed, the same bed he let Stannis pull him into so long ago, he has even more to say. Stannis can see it in the way Davos is biting his lip- he promised not to speak, and difficult as it must be, he keeps his promises. _

_ He can’t know that Stannis demanded his silence because if Davos told him all the things Davos would tell him, it would only make their separation harder. Bad enough Stannis couldn’t resist this much. He can’t take everything Davos wants him to have or the loss of it would break something in Stannis permanently. _

_ Reaching up, he runs his fingers through Davos’ thinning hair. It’s soft and thick despite the places it’s fled, and Stannis lets his fingers twine through it. _

_ Davos’ breath stutters, his eyes falling shut, and Stannis guides his face lower. _

_ Davos’ eyes open again; in the low light, they’re so light they almost look empty. _

_ Stannis kisses him so he’ll look alive again. _

_ This is how Stannis knows it’s a dream. More than the knowledge that Davos discarded this set of sheets years ago, more than the fact that Davos’ hair has nearly gone entirely gray since the last time Stannis had him, more than the absence of scars Davos has acquired since Robert announced Stannis’ engagement, the indisputable proof that Stannis is dreaming is Davos himself. _

_ He’d taken every chance he’d gotten to kiss Stannis, and when there hadn’t been one, he’d made one. _

_ Stannis was right not to fuck Davos the day Robert announced Stannis’ betrothal. He was right not to begin his marriage to Selyse by dragging his onion knight into his study and taking the last chance he had to kiss Davos before he was expected to propose formally to a woman who had as little interest in him as he had in her. _

_ In Stannis’ dreams, Davos wants Stannis less than he did. Stannis is denying himself, not Davos. Davos, who’s known people other than Stannis in the years since Stannis last lay in Davos’ bed, couldn’t be the one suffering. Davos, with his amicable divorce and his quiet life, couldn’t want Stannis half as much as Stannis wants him. _

_ In his dreams, Davos fucks him out of affection and loneliness. In reality, Davos wants him out of far more dangerous things. _

xx

It’s a job that feels out of step with time, Stannis thinks as he unsaddles his horse in the small stable just outside the lighthouse, but lighthouse keepers remain vital to the survival of the Stormlands. No machine can automate the task of watching the shore for ships coming too close to the rocks. A human eye must keep watch during storms to warn ships away, and human hands must be relied on to run to the wreck and lead the survivors to safer ground.

Lighthouse keepers must be the most reliable of men, and Stannis places his trust most squarely in the man he’s come to see.

Davos largely lives on his own. He has a second keeper sometimes, and his sons visit him periodically. But both groups come and go. His sons have families of their own to attend to. This stretch of the coast is more dangerous than most. The number of fatalities remains high despite the lighthouse. Men can only witness so much death before they reach their breaking point. 

Somehow, Davos endures it, whittling little figures as he waits for the next storm to come.

As if summoned, Davos appears at the door to the stable. Stannis is just leaving for the tack room, his arms full of his riding gear, and he comes to an unintentional halt.

Davos is older than the last time Stannis saw him. His beard is longer- still well-groomed but longer. His hair has receded further, though not as far as Stannis’, and it’s more gray than brown. He’s wind-tousled and dressed in his favorite sweater, a thick, shapeless thing he’s lent to Stannis a few times; it’s as warm and soft as anything Stannis has ever held.

It suits Davos better than it suits Stannis, which seems fitting.

“You look well, My Lord,” Davos greets him. “I wasn’t expecting a visit or I would’ve had the stable readied and come down to receive you properly.”

“I should have given you notice, only I unexpectedly found myself with extra time and nothing to fill it, and I thought a letter might only reach you a day before I arrived, if not after.”

A series of lies- Stannis had to fight and plan ahead for every second he’s here. The lighthouse is far from the castle. Stannis is lord of a valued keep, one Robert relies on. He cannot simply leave.

Davos, who must know this, lets the lie go unchallenged. “Shall I take that from you?” he asks, nodding at Stannis’ armful.

“I can see to these, but you could lead my horse to a paddock.”

“Firestarter gets along well with my old nag,” Davos says. “Black Betha could use the company, if you’ll allow it, My Lord.”

It’s right that a lowborn man like Davos addresses Stannis the way he does. The disparity in their positions is clear.

Yet it sits uncomfortably in Stannis’ belly. Davos isn’t just any man. His position, if only in Stannis’ life, is far greater than anything a family bloodline can trace.

“Put him out with her, then.”

Davos nods and takes hold of Firestarter’s halter. Stannis resumes his course.

When they reunite in the stable, Davos smiles widely at him.

Stannis nods in return.

“I thought I recognized you from the lantern, My Lord,” Davos says, “so I brought this down with me, lest I forget to give it to you. It’s for Shireen, something I promised her the last time I saw her.”

The last time Davos saw Shireen was three years prior, but he shows no sign of unhappiness at the delay. He holds out a delicately carved stag, which Stannis delicately plucks from his palm. He doesn’t so much as brush Davos’ hand as he does.

It fits perfectly in his pocket. “She’ll be sure to send you her thanks in a letter.”

Stannis doesn’t have a better reply. He considered bringing Shireen with him- Davos adores children, his affection for them unhindered by Shireen’s disfigurement and parentage, and Shireen has adored him since before she could speak- but Stannis doesn’t get to see Davos very often. He intends to have all of Davos’ attention while he can.

“How have the waters been?” he asks, leading Davos out of the stable and into the warm summer sunlight. “We’ve had more storms this year than last, I think.”

Davos nods, a look of frustration wrinkling his features. “The storms have indeed been worse than I’ve seen them, My Lord, even for the Stormlands. They come on quickly and make the sky so dark, I’ve taken to sleeping by the lantern.” He shakes his head. “I asked that letters be sent out to every port, reminding captains to keep their ships farther from shore, but too many of them continue to sail too close.”

“I’ll send word from the castle when I return,” Stannis assures him. “If they won’t listen to the lighthouse keeper, perhaps the threat of earning the ire of a lord will make them take heed.”

Davos smiles at him, soft and relieved. It makes Stannis’ chest hurt.

“I’d appreciate that, My Lord. It’s not that I mind the new arrangements, of course, and the change in the air does wake me reliably.”

“You’d rather not see any more ships crash if they don’t have to. You don’t need to justify that.”

“Aye.” Davos draws a deep breath. “It’s a terrible thing, ships being torn apart as they are when they hit the rocks. Maybe the crew is prepared, maybe not. I doubt it matters much. Lives are lost- needlessly so, when captains can plot their courses farther out.”

In the sorrow that pulls on Davos’ features, Stannis sees the years of loss Davos has endured.

Too much of it came at Stannis’ command.

“Come,” he says. “You wrote to Shireen about the incredible sunsets you’ve witnessed this time of year- she was asked that I tell you she was impressed by your penmanship. I can’t return without having seen one, and it’s nearly dusk.”

Davos’ expression lifts, and he obligingly leads Stannis into the lighthouse and up the stairs.

He speaks as he does, though the words are lost on Stannis.

Unbidden, Stannis’ eyes trace the breadth of Davos’ shoulders, the shifting sinews in his forearms. The shape of his legs, clear even in his loose-cut trousers. The curve of his backside.

Stannis still remembers the way his hands fit every part of Davos. If ever a man had been made to be another’s, Davos was made to be Stannis’.

When they reach the lantern and its unobstructed view of the sunset, the sun is a hair’s breadth above the horizon.

Davos stands an equivalent distance from Stannis, but as the sun sinks lower and lower and finally disappears into the horizon, Stannis remains frozen, unable and unwilling to reach for Davos.

He shivers, his jacket too thin to keep out the creeping cold, and doesn’t think about the warmth of lying in Davos’ bed with its flannel sheets.

“Shall we go in?” Davos asks. His voice is rough from not speaking, but it reminds Stannis of the night Davos said he’d love Stannis until it killed him. He hadn’t hesitated over his apparent cause of his death; he was resolute in the fact that his death would be tied to Stannis. “It’s getting cold, My Lord.”

“I’d rather stay out here a while longer,” Stannis says. “You should return if you’re cold.”

In the dark, with only the light from the room behind them, Davos looks far older than he is. “I’ll stay with you if you don’t mind.”

“Then stay.”

A better man would go inside because Davos won’t go in until Stannis does, but if Stannis were a truly good man, he wouldn’t be here at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don’t have any upload schedule or specific number of chapters, so posting is probably going to be a bit chaotic


	5. By night they all share one moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> t (but moving toward m), spirit and human merchant au loosely inspired by the concept of [spice and wolf](https://spiceandwolf.fandom.com/wiki/Spice_%26_Wolf_Wiki)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i very much smashed a number of asoiaf/got's religions into one big religion/spiritual plane, which i'd say is messy, but i like stannis and saw what happened with him on got, so lbr... there's precedent for mess...

There’s a naked man in the back of Davos’ cart. He’s sitting up preternaturally straight despite being in the middle of the cart and having nothing at his back. His legs are crossed, his ankles tucked neatly under his thighs. He isn’t looking at Davos. Instead, his are pointed between his own legs, drawing Davos’ eyes where good manners dictate eyes aren’t supposed to be drawn, to where the man’s long fingers are peeling an onion.

Around him, all of Davos’ bags of onions are still closed, the mouths tied shut with Davos’ preferred sailor’s knot.

Despite the situation, Davos can’t help but notice the man is handsome, if in a distant sort of way. Not Davos’ preference- he fell for Marya in part because she’s soft and lively and warm, three things this man is decidedly not- but there’s something compelling about him despite it.

“You’re Davos,” the man says.

Davos swallows and adjusts his grip on his dagger. “That’s right. Who are you?”

“You’re a merchant.”

“I am, but-”

“My name is Stannis.” Finally looking up, the man- Stannis- meets Davos’ eyes. “In thanks for your offering, I have decided to elevate you above your birth.”

A memory clicks into place.

“The shrine.”

Stannis nods. “It’s been a long time since I was visited by a human. Longer still since one left me an offering.”

That isn’t surprising. The older, forgotten spirits that used to protect villages like this one have nearly all been abandoned in favor of bigger ones. Stannis’ temple was hardly bigger than the room Davos rented last night and far removed from the village. The custom of continuously building upon a beloved spirit’s temple must have stopped at least a century ago for Stannis. Even before then, he must not have had much of a home.

Davos himself had only visited out of curiosity. He’d had a few hours to wait before he could speak with the mayor, and the unhappiness roiling in the town had been something worth investigating.

The locals were torn over what to do with their abandoned temple, it seemed. Some felt they should leave it standing, to honor the spirit they’d outgrown, while others were more concerned with moving on from spirits they didn’t love.

Most of the shrine had been like every other, but the statue behind the altar had caught Davos’ attention. It had been carved into the image of a man as human as Davos. Most temples give their spirits inhuman features, but in Stannis’ temple, his sole statue had been indistinguishable from any of the ones commemorating human heroes. A stern man with a sharp-beaked bird perched on his shoulder, his clothes old-fashioned but plain, his expression grim- Davos had wondered if there had been a mistake and a man’s statue had been placed inside by mistake.

The more he’d looked at it, though, the more certain he’d become that it was indeed the image of a spirit; no human statue ever made his hair stand on end like that one had.

It had seemed cruel to let the spirit go hungry when Davos had food, so he’d pulled out his lunch and divvied it up between them, keeping the apple for himself and laying the sandwich on the altar.

He’d figured he’d leave, an animal would find what he’d left, and that would be that.

Instead, the spirit Davos recognizes from the statue is naked in Davos’ cart, promising him something that can’t be promised. Not by a spirit as small as he is.

“You think I mean to do this with my otherworldly powers,” Stannis says, his lips twisting into a crooked smile, “so you doubt me.”

“I mean no disrespect,” Davos says quickly. Forgotten or no, a spirit is a spirit.

Stannis scoffs. “I’ve survived without so much as the invocation of my name for centuries. If I cared about your respect, I would be dead. No, what I offer is my company on your travels. I know histories and names you cannot. I will advise you.”

“And in return?”

“You will acknowledge me.”

Davos blinks. “That’s… generous.”

Suspiciously so.

“You have until high noon to decide” Stannis says, ignoring him. “If you refuse, I will return to my altar. If you haven’t decided by this time, I will take it as a refusal. If you accept-”

“I accept.”

This time, Stannis is the one blinking in surprise. “You accept?”

Davos nods. Better to have a spirit than none, even if this one seems a bit… faulty. “You’ll have to wear clothes, though.”

Stannis frowns down at himself, then squints up at Davos. A moment later, clothes materialize around him.

“I trust these will suffice.”

Davos looks him over sharply, but Stannis looks like any other man Davos might encounter on the road. “They will.”

“Then you’ll do your part and the pact will be formed.”

It takes Davos a moment to remember anything resembling a prayer, and when he does, he offers a modified version of the prayer of thanks he learned as a boy, “Thank you for this bounty, Stannis. Your favor has blessed me.”

Stannis lets out a soft breath, his eyes falling shut as he says something in a language Davos can’t place. When he opens his eyes, he looks exactly as he had before he closed them, but Davos’ gut tells him something significant has changed.

“Where are you going?” Stannis asks. He gets to his feet as he does and settles himself on the seat behind the horse.

“Dragonstone, ultimately,” Davos tells him as he takes his spot beside Stannis. “A lord around here has a son who's living out there studying obsidian.”

Stannis gives him a long look. “Not only a merchant, then. You’re a smuggler.”

“Does it matter?” Davos asks. He’s never known a spirit who cared much for human morals. It’s one of their saving graces, so far as he’s concerned.

“Yes.”

Davos freezes. His heart swells and starts to race, suddenly too big for his chest. “In what way?”

“I don’t give my favor to men who break laws for their own convenience. If you want me to continue with you, you must show me proof you're a man of good character.” He gives Davos another crooked smile. “Unless, of course, you aren’t. If so, you and I will part ways now.”

This feels more like the spirits Davos knows- promising things and changing the terms of their deals after the deal is struck. At least this one isn’t happy about it. “What sort of proof do you require?”

Stannis tilts his head in thought. “In the next town, purchase a cleaver. I will talk you through the rest after you’ve done so. If you change your mind, you may stop me at any time.”

Davos swallows, but he nods. He’s a good smuggler, but he was better on the sea. Even then, his family had little to look forward to in life. They would never have a name, good or bad. His sons would never become anything more than Davos. His wife, if she still wishes to be called so, will have nothing better than the disintegrating hovel he left her when he left the sea for the more promising land.

If Stannis can bring them a brighter future, Davos will give him what he wants.

xx

“You bear pain well.”

Davos shrugs. “I’m a poor man, aren’t I? Bearing pain’s in my blood.”

“You misunderstand me.” The cart creaks as Stannis shifts his weight- he isn’t used to sitting, Davos discovered with no small amount of amusement on the first day of their journey. This is their third, and Stannis is showing no signs of acclimating. “I don’t mean you can survive pain or that you can remain in good spirits as you do.”

That has the sound of a joke at Davos’ expense, but his sour mood from losing his fingertips makes it difficult to tell. “What _ do _ you mean, then?”

“You understand why you have to suffer. I gave you the option to flee, but you decided the trade was worth the price. Now you sit beside me, less four knuckles, without ill will.”

Davos nods. He hadn’t been certain that would be the case, but when he told Stannis it would only be fair if Stannis were the one who took what Davos was giving up, Stannis had agreed without argument. He hadn’t enjoyed the process, but he hadn’t shied from it either.

“You also haven’t asked me to take away the pain or to heal you.”

That would render the experience moot, surely. Besides, Stannis doesn’t strike him as much of a healer.

“I assumed there was a point to the pain,” Davos says.

Stannis nods.

There’s nothing else to say, so they lapse into silence.

It’s a nice day. The sun is warm and the air sweet. If Marya were here, Davos would have convinced her to take a break by now. Something about appreciating the flowers or giving the horse time to graze. She would have seen through him with a laugh, but that’s half the fun, reminding her of how much they like to be together.

Stannis, Davos suspects, wouldn’t be as amenable to a roll in the metaphorical hay.

The thought of it- leaning in and asking Stannis if he sees any flowers he’d like to stop and look at in greater detail, as if Stannis might say yes and make a show of bending over to inspect a tulip- makes Davos bite his tongue to stop a laugh. He accidentally clenches his injured fist when he does, and the laughter dies quickly as a sharp wave of pain hits.

He breathes in sharply and holds it until the pain ebbs.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Stannis says.

“Do what?”

“Hold your breath. You should focus on breathing evenly. Depriving yourself of breath will only make it more likely that you’ll lose consciousness.”

That doesn’t sound entirely right, but Stannis is a spirit. He knows things Davos doesn’t. Perhaps this is one of them.

If he does understand how pain works, he might be able to lessen it, and if so, that raises a number of possibilities. Perhaps he isn’t a healer, but removing pain and healing wounds aren’t necessarily the same.

“Could you?” Davos asks. “If you wanted, could you take the pain away?”

Stannis’ expression grows wary, and Davos shakes his head sharply. “I’m not asking about my fingers. I’m thinking about grateful ladies with children who don’t fuss for a time. Old lords with knees that ache and deep pockets.”

Stannis’ expression merely shifts into something worse. “I cannot heal, nor can I lessen pain without a sacrifice of something far more dear than the tips of a good man’s fingers. Peace, joy, love… all these are beyond my reach.”

Davos is so thrown by the look of misery on Stannis’ face, he doesn’t think to wonder why Stannis would care about things like joy until it’s too late to ask.

xx

Davos watches Stannis sink into the spring with some amusement, Stannis’ grim expression melting into relief as he settles into hot water.

Despite all the time they’ve spent together, Davos still doesn’t have a solid grasp of how Stannis relates to the elements. Spirits are supposed to have affinities for certain ideas, which is certainly clear in Stannis’ case, but duty and pride ought to correlate with fire. Stannis’ relieved sigh suggests he’s fully able to appreciate the heat of the water, but he should be bothered by the fact that it’s water. He isn’t bothered by the cold either, which a fire spirit ought to be.

He can’t be water, though. He gets unhappy every time it rains, and the creek he had to walk through the other day left him in a foul mood.

Earth is out as well. Stannis can navigate, but it isn’t instinctive. He doesn’t like human food- eating or making. He can recognize some plants, but almost exclusively the medicinal ones.

As for air… Stannis doesn’t seem attached to any particular place. He isn’t flexible, though. Not like air spirits are. And he looks miserable when the wind picks up during a storm.

Davos searches Stannis’ face for some indication of what element he’s tied to but only finds the familiar shapes of Stannis’ face. His strong jaw. The furrow between his brows. His long, almost delicate nose. His thinning hair.

His lips, which aren’t half as thin as Davos had first thought.

They’re parted now as Stannis relaxes against the natural wall of the underground spring. The corners are curled up in the start of a rare smile, and Davos wonders, just for a moment, if Stannis is the type of spirit that enjoys the sort of company humans like.

He pushes the thought away quickly.

Stannis is his companion, perhaps even his friend, but that’s all there is between them, Davos reasons.

Even if he did want Stannis and Stannis wanted him in return, what would Davos accomplish by bedding him? A one-off that might go well but could make the rest of their journey uncomfortable?

What if it went badly?

What if it didn’t?

Davos thinks about Stannis too much as it is. He doesn’t need to distract himself further with more thoughts.

If only his mind would cooperate and let go of the sight of Stannis’ eyes fluttering shut when that woman in the last city they visited touched his face. She saw a god in him, and he’d followed her to her home, a place with a fire stoked so high the door handles had been hot to the touch. She’d bedded Stannis; anyone could see that. If it hadn’t been for the pact, Stannis would have stayed with her.

That’s the point of a pact, though, Davos supposed. Stannis can’t have what he wants until Davos gets what he wants. No witches in impossible houses just beyond the city wall until Davos is rich.

If only Stannis didn’t sometimes look at Davos the same way he’d looked at the red witch.

xx

Stannis has been staring at the little shrine in the corner of the inn for more than half an hour. It’s unsettling. He’s usually good at pretending to be human- not a likable human, but still. He blinks when he should and obeys the same unspoken social rules Davos is subject to.

He doesn’t get sick, so he doesn’t really need to stay inside, as he’d pointed out the first night Davos had told him to come inside, but leaving him outside would only draw unwanted attention, as Davos had pointed out in return.

Stannis is good company, too, for the most part.

“Do you not like the Stag King?” Davos asks. Stannis doesn’t like many things, but he does have opinions. 

He knows a great deal about the history of the country, too. Politics, culture, local spirits who’ve long since perished… He’s taught Davos an incredible amount in the months they’ve traveled together.

Stannis does like talking, and if Davos keeps him on topic, he’ll spend the day explaining all sorts of things with minimal tangents into how unloved he is, how poorly led the world is, his inability to tolerate “the exchange of love for coin”, or any of his oddly specific complaints.

Deciphering that had been… interesting.

It stings a bit, considering Davos makes a point of saying a prayer of thanks to him every day.

Frown deepening, Stannis shrugs. “He’s my brother.”

Davos drops his spoon, spilling stew over himself and the table. “He’s your _ what?” _

“My brother.” Stannis gives him one of his crooked smiles. “The older one, of course. I’m not sure what my younger brother is called now. Last I heard, it was something quite long that had something to do with deer and flowers.”

Davos’ gut clenches. “Wait. You’re the brother of the king of spirits?”

“Unless my brother has lost his throne, which isn’t impossible, yes.”

Davos stares at him. If Stannis’ brothers are indeed the Stag King and the Stag Prince, then Stannis is…

“I’m eating dinner with the Warrior of Light?” Davos croaks.

Stannis’ expression darkens. “You are not.”

“Don’t lie,” Davos hisses. “I pledged myself to you and I’ve let you help me build my fortune because I thought you were just some forgotten spirit-”

“I _ am _a forgotten spirit!”

Stannis slams his hand down on the table, startling Davos and nearly upending his dinner.

They’re fortunate the only other person in the room is a drunkard who’s been asleep at a table in the far corner since before they arrived.

“That name is for the spirit who would have succeeded R’hllor and become the flame that would destroy the-” He cuts himself off sharply. “I am not the Warrior of Light. If I were, why would you have found me starving as I was?”

“But the Stag King is your brother,” Davos presses. “I don’t know as much as you, but I do know the Stag Spirits are the fraternal bookends around the Warrior of Light. If the Stag King is your brother, you _ must _ be the Warrior of Light.”

Stannis stiffly gets to his feet. “The Warrior of Light plays a role I am unfit for. Don’t mention this again.”

He doesn’t let Davos reply. He storms out, booted footsteps heavy on the creaking floorboards.

The door has no sooner slammed shut behind him than the drunk at the table sits up and looks over at Davos. He doesn’t look drunk at all, his dark eyes focused as he says, “You’d probably have an easier time calling him the Storm King, I think.”

Davos reaches for his sword, a gift from Stannis presented to him as they left the first city they reached. “Who are you?”

The man pushes his hood back, revealing a lean face and dark curls of hair pulled away from his face. “That’s difficult to answer,” he says, sounding apologetic. “A long time ago, I had no name, then I took one that was his- not by choice,” he adds. “I no more wanted this than he did. I've been looking for him for a long time, but Stannis is good at making himself suffer when he wants to.”

“Looking for him for what purpose?” Davos asks.

The man with a name that isn’t his gives Davos a look of surprise. “To bring him home.”

xx

“You misunderstood me,” Stannis says as he lifts his arm so Davos can roll himself under it and lay his head on Stannis’ shoulder. They’re still catching their breath, and Davos lays his hand on the center of Stannis’ chest just to feel it move.

“When?” Davos asks around a yawn. “Not just now, I don’t think.”

Stannis clears his throat, and Davos lazily hooks a leg around one of Stannis’.

“Davos.”

“‘M only bein’ friendly. Can’t go again so soon, ‘m afraid. Not even for the Storm King.”

He can feel Stannis thinking, deciding between trying to have a conversation now, when Davos is exhausted and more interested in being held than talking, and trying to have one later, when Davos is awake and busy with the unending daily tasks of a human knight in the spirits’ court.

“When I said I needed you to speak my name,” Stannis begins, apparently deciding now is better, “I didn’t mean you had to pray to me. You only had to acknowledge me.”

“There’s a difference?”

“It depends on the person.”

“Stannis…”

“In theory, a prayer is more powerful because it requires faith.” He clears his throat. “Saying words you don’t mean but think someone wants to hear aren’t a prayer any more than swallowing dirt is a meal.

Davos tries to blink away the wave of sleep rushing toward him, sensing this is important. “And not in theory?” he forces his mouth to ask.

“You’re terrible at praying.” Stannis pulls Davos a little closer. “If I had depended on yours prayers to sustain me, I would have died in a day. You have no faith in what you cannot see, and your empty thanks gave me nothing. But other things you say-”

Davos squeezes his eyes shut. “Please don’t tell me this is about what I say when we’re having sex-”

“You say my name like an invitation.”

Cracking one eye open, Davos looks up at Stannis, who isn’t looking at him.

“You have, from the moment you shared your meal with me, invited me to come closer to you.”

It’s been a long time, but Davos remembers the feeling in his belly when he’d lain the food on Stannis’ altar. He’d wanted to know more about this strange spirit. He hadn’t expected to meet him, but Davos had hoped he might learn something.

“When you call on me, you do so knowing I’ll answer because you know me,” Stannis says. “You don’t say my name with hope; you say it with confidence. The first thought you have is of me.” He looks down at Davos, and he looks strangely unsettled for someone being worshipped. “I never sought devotion from you, but that’s what you’ve given me. I won’t squander it.”

Rather than try to form a coherent reply, Davos clumsily reaches for Stannis’ head and pulls it down for a kiss.

“You’re right- I’ve never had much interest in spirits,” he admits quietly. “If I’m going to place my life in someone else’s hands, I want to know what those hands want. Spirits don’t do that. Maybe they hear us, maybe not. Maybe they care, maybe not. Maybe what happens is a sign from them, maybe not. But you… I know you hear me. I know you care. I know when you’re speaking and what you mean.”

Stannis hums, pleased. “Good.”

Davos kisses Stannis’ shoulder, pleased himself. “Now, I need to sleep. Some of us can’t survive on prayers.”

“Then sleep.”

It’s sound advice, and Davos intends to take it- after he stretches up for another kiss. Stannis pulls him closer, though, which he probably only does because he likes to wrap himself around Davos at night, and when Davos breaks the kiss, Stannis tilts his head for another. He’s warm against the cold that pervades the tower they’ve been given, his body familiar. His lips are soft. His fingers find bruises he left last night and gently press them.

Davos’ breath stutters when Stannis moves a thigh between Davos’, and he knows he won’t be following Stannis’ command for a while yet.

Stannis doesn’t seem to mind being disobeyed this time.


	6. I have fire left in me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> t, non-magical modern setting, old

“Davos!”

Stannis doesn’t look up from his book. “He doesn’t sleep with his hearing aids in,” he reminds Shireen. “Even if he did, he keeps turning them off when Melisandre comes by and forgets to turn them back on. He won’t wake up unless you make him.”

Shireen sighs, and a moment later, Davos startles awake as their daughter shakes his shoulder.

“Shireen!” he says too loudly.

Stannis taps Davos’ shoulder and points to his own ear.

Neither of them expected Davos’ hearing to go so quickly, but it was one of life’s simpler curveballs. Stannis had thought something was killing Davos, but he’s been promised by three doctors that Davos isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. He got fitted for his top of the line hearing aids and came home with all the accessories he’d need to enjoy as much garbage on TV as he wants. The only downside is the two of them have always been good at speaking in looks- provided they’re both wearing the right glasses- and spend most of their time together, so Davos hasn’t had much reason to get used to his hearing aids.

If he didn’t turn them off every time their neighbor comes by, he’d probably be more comfortable with them, but Davos just squints at him whenever Stannis tells him that.

“She’s trying to seduce you,” he always says. “I don’t have to listen to her trying, even if you think it’s nothing.”

As if Stannis has the energy, let alone interest- Davos is the cornerstone of Stannis’ life; he’s reliable and comfortable. His ideas of playfulness don’t exhaust Stannis nearly as much as everyone else’s. They’ve been best friends for so many years and married nearly as long, Stannis wouldn’t know what to do with someone else, and he doesn’t want to know. He already has Davos.

Melisandre is beautiful, and she has interesting ideas. He enjoys her company.

She isn’t Davos. She doesn’t kick Stannis in her sleep and drool on Stannis’ pillow during an afternoon nap. She doesn’t turn her hearing aids off when she’s in a mood.

She doesn’t look at Stannis like she’s never seen someone as wonderful as he is when he’s on the phone with Robert and trying in vain to remind him why organizing the family reunion is his job and not Stannis'.

She didn’t come back from the dead for him.

Davos was the one who held Stannis together through his strained marriage and the messy divorce that ended it.

Davos took Shireen’s homesick calls from college 

Davos wants Stannis to be happy. He was the first person to want that.

He’s been at Stannis’ side for so long, Stannis feels cold when Davos isn’t at his side.

Fingers twisting in his ears as he turns his hearing aids on, Davos purses his lips as he waits for the world to have sound again.

“What’s wrong, Shireen?” he asks, his voice back to its normal range.

Shireen puts on her most solemn expression- one Stannis has a creeping suspicion is based on him. “Father wants to take up running again.”

Davos looks over at Stannis. “You mentioned you wanted to get back out there at dinner the other day, didn’t you?” Stannis nods, and Davos looks back at Shireen. “He already told me, princess.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“Of course. He’s still a treat in running shorts.”

Stannis snorts.

Shireen’s face contorts in a look of disgust that makes her look exactly like her mother. “Davos!”

“What? He’s a very handsome man. That’s why I married him.”

“Don’t forget the money,” Stannis reminds him. “You always leave out the money, but I know you’re a mercenary after my bank account. A number of our neighbors warned me about you.”

“Oh, of course. Thank you, Stannis. Handsome and rich- I’m not looking to deprive myself of either of his attributes.” Voice softening, Davos adds, “We checked with all his doctors, Shireen. A little exercise will be good for his heart, and I’ll be out there on a golf cart to make sure he doesn’t overdo it.”

Without looking away from their daughter, Davos holds his hand out, palm up. Stannis takes it in his.

The action is familiar, but he’s still caught off-guard by how good it feels. Davos fits him perfectly.

“You’ll have to try elsewhere, I’m afraid,” Stannis advises.

“Not Melisandre,” Davos says quickly.

Stannis rubs his thumb over the back of Davos’ hand. He’s starting to wonder if there isn’t more to this than Davos simply not liking Melisandre, but that’s an argument for later. “I don’t see why not,” he says instead. “I’d think you’d enjoy it if she said I shouldn’t and I did it anyway.”

Davos does turn toward him now, just to give him a pained look. “Stannis, I’m not letting that woman know you wear running shorts before I absolutely have to.”

Stannis shakes his head and returns to his book, letting Shireen and Davos go back and forth meaninglessly in the background. Davos’ hand is warm and his hold strong, Shireen is more exasperated than upset, and the book Renly recommended is better than Stannis had dared to hope.

Somehow, without meaning to or realizing it was happening, Stannis got everything he wanted.


	7. Cornerman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> t, <strike>mostly</strike> canon universe, amnesia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cornerman (n): a coach, cutman or person responsible for tending to a fighter between rounds, as in boxing

Davos keeps his voice even as he says, “You’re the rightful king.”

The man on the bed looks like Stannis. He’s as tall and thin as Stannis, and he's wearing Stannis’ clothes. His voice has the same rasp, the same accent.

“Why does it matter?”

But this man isn’t Stannis. He has none of Stannis’ certainty. None of his force of will.

“We’re at war because of it. That ought to matter greatly.” Davos has told Stannis this every day for the last fortnight. It’s clear the question isn’t the result of a memory problem; he asks it differently every day, as if he’s waiting for a new answer. “The throne is yours by right. Anyone else taking it would invite chaos.”

“More chaos than civil war?”

Davos hesitates, and here, the man becomes Stannis.

“You tell me I’m a man of justice. Why am I listening to counsel telling me to make living sacrifices? Why am I waging war with people who have no desire for it? They don’t care who sits on the throne, and why should they?”

There are no answers to those questions, and they both know it.

Stannis gives Davos a long look. “You’re a good man.”

“I’m your man,” Davos says. He isn’t good, but he’s loyal to Stannis. That’s good enough.

“What will you do if my memory never returns?”

Davos swallows. He fears that every day, and the longer Stannis’ memory evades him, the greater Davos’ fears grow.

It won’t help anything to admit this, so Davos keeps it to himself. “I’m not sure.”

“You should consider it more.”

“How do you know I’m not considering it?”

Stannis’ lips twitch. “I don’t know you, but you’re familiar to me. I don’t doubt you,though I doubt everyone else here. And as I said, you’re a good man. You want me to recover. You care for me, so you don’t like to contemplate the possibility that I will never again be the man you knew.”

Davos doesn’t answer, and Stannis tilts his head to the right, studying Davos. “I wonder sometimes, you know. I was an unhappy man. Would the return of my memories return me to that state? And as a good man, can you hope for me to remember?”

“You are the king the kingdom needs,” Davos snaps. He would never raise his voice like this at Stannis, but this man is not Stannis.

“No, I _ was _the king you thought the kingdom needs. I couldn’t rule a stable as I am now.”

It’s true. Davos wants to argue the point, but he can’t. Stannis didn’t want to be king, but he had to acknowledge his claim because it was right. This man doesn’t want the throne, and he has no reason to feel he should take it.

“You would never forgive me if I let your campaign fall apart because you were incapacitated,” Davos hedges.

“And I and the kingdom will never forgive you if you force more men to die pointlessly for me,” Stannis counters. “If recovering my memories will make me as relentless as I’m told I was, then I will rally them again.”

A knock on the door prevents Davos from having to flounder. Melisandre pokes her head in a moment later, and Stannis sighs.

“I apologize, Ser Davos, but I need to have a word with you.”

Stannis waves a dismissal at Davos, so Davos follows her into the hallway.

He’s no sooner shut the door than she says, “He is not Azor Ahai.”

Davos tries and fails to muster the energy to be angry. “That’s what you care about?”

“If he were the Prince That Was Promised, a fall from a horse would not have done this.” She looks at him steadily. Davos knows her devotion to Stannis has always come from his position in her religion; she came to him because he seemed to fulfill a prophecy, not because she felt any particular love for him. “I would feel it if the man in there were Azor Ahai, as I thought I felt it when he was himself.”

This is new. “As you _ thought _you felt it?” Davos asks.

“Losing his memory would not have made him cease to be Azor Ahai,” she confirms, “if it were possible for that to happen in the first case.”

Davos stares at her, unable to take in everything she’s saying.

Unwilling to take it in, perhaps.

“Go, then,” he says when the silence has stretched thin. “Wherever you think your hero is, go find him. I wouldn't stop you if I could.”

“Selyse wishes to leave as well.”

“Take her, too, then.”

Melisandre raises her brows.

Davos shakes his head. He’s tired. “I won’t be the one to tell Stannis.”

“I didn't expect you to.” She hesitates for a moment. “I do wish he were Azor Ahai, not just for myself.”

Davos sighs. “What about Shireen?”

“She has no love for R’hllor. Her mother will take her if you will not, but I doubt she will be happy with us.”

_ No, _ Davos thinks, _ she won’t. The question is whether she’ll be happy here. _

Melisandre gives him a hard look. “She’d rather stay with you than either parent.”

Maybe she would. Maybe she wouldn't. Davos doesn't know. He doesn't know anything anymore.

“Then she’ll stay with me," he hears himself say. "Is there anything else?”

“No. We’ll leave tomorrow at sunrise.”

Davos nods and walks around her. He’s more tired than any man ought to get.

xx

At lunch the day after Melisandre and Selyse leave, Stannis tells Davos he’s had enough. He tells the far side of his window, really; he hasn't managed to meet Davos' eyes all day.

“I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to fight a war.”

“What will you do, then?” Davos asks. “You were raised to be a lord. You’re a competent swordsman and a great tactician. None of those will be enough for you to survive in this kingdom. Someone will recognize you, and you’ll have to reckon with that- kill them or let yourself be taken captive by another king.”

“Not in this kingdom, yes.” Stannis doesn’t look at him. “Nor in any of the others involved in this war. Yet other continents exist, don't they? Essos seems survivable. You've been there, and you seem alive.” He narrows his eyes at Davos and amends, "Mostly."

Bile rising, Davos says the obvious. “You want to run away.”

“I want to live a life I understand.”

“And your men?" Davos presses. "What will you do with them? Just disband the entire force?”

“Yes." There isn't so much as a trace of hesitation in Stannis' voice. "If they want to continue to fight, they can find a new cause. If not, they’re free to return home until another of the would-be kings comes looking.”

Davos clenches his fists. "Another would-be king" isn't what Stannis was. “This isn’t you.”

Stannis snorts and finally looks away from the window. “You keep saying that. No one else is half as concerned with me being myself as you. Not my wife. Not my daughter. Not a single one of the men I command.” His mouth turns down in an expression Davos has seen countless times. “I’ve disappointed you. I’m not the man you knew, but you’re the one I know. Why? Why do I feel I know you when even my wife and child are strangers?”

Davos doesn’t answer- if this man insists he isn't Davos' king, Davos doesn't owe him answers- and Stannis sighs.

“If I do leave, what will you do, Davos?” Davos looks at him sharply, and Stannis lifts one brow. “You thought I didn’t think of you? I haven’t stopped since I woke up and saw you at my bedside. It’s familiar, like a path I’ve walked so often I don’t have to pay attention to it. So familiar I walk it without meaning to.” He lets out a heavy breath. “Who are you, Davos Seaworth? How did you make even a friendless man like me care for you?”

“Don’t." It's out before Davos means to say it, but the room is suddenly too small. He can feel the walls creeping closer.

This is man is not his king. This man is not his king. 

This man is not Stannis Baratheon.

Stannis shakes his head. “Don’t what? Mention the glaring lack of visitors? Tell you what any fool could- that I fell in love with you so long ago the fact of it survived cracking my skull on a stone? A feat nothing else can match? You're the constant, Davos Seaworth. But I don’t want to live in my own shadow,” he says quietly, looking back out the window. “Go wherever you like. Do whatever you like. You don't owe me anything."

"That isn't-"

"Isn't it? I gave you a better life, and a man like you doesn't forget that." Stannis' mouth turns down in the corners. "I’m not the king you served, but I’m glad I was. I suspect there are few people who can claim to have won such loyalty from another soul, undeserved as it is now.”

As is becoming more and more common, there’s nothing Davos can say in reply to Stannis. He tries to find something. He scrambles and reaches and struggles for anything to shake Stannis out of this, but he comes up short.

_ Where is my king? _ he wonders desperately. _ Where is Stannis Baratheon? _

The answer is clear and always has been. Stannis is gone.

“As you wish, Your Grace.”

Davos leaves before Stannis can tell him not to say that.

xx

Shireen is waiting in Davos’ quarters when he returns. She gets up and runs to him, throwing her arms around his waist only a strangled, “Davos.”

He remembers her fear when her father was shot off his horse. He remembers her sorrow when Stannis didn’t recognize her when he woke up.

He can only guess at her terror at losing her mother only days after her father forgot himself, and now he’s come to add to her uncertainty.

“Your father doesn’t want to be king,” he tells the top of her head. “He wants to leave Westeros entirely.”

She nods. “He told me.”

Davos feels himself frown. “He did?”

“He did.” Pulling back, Shireen releases her hold on Davos. “He asked me if I wanted to go with him even though he isn’t my father.”

“What did you tell him?” Davos asks, though he dreads the answer.

Shireen looks up at him, only for her eyes to slide away before she says, “I asked him why he said he isn’t my father. People forget things all the time. I can’t name all the Free Cities, but they don’t stop being them just because I forget their names.”

“That’s…. very wise of you.”

“I’m Shireen Baratheon,” she reminds him. Her eyes meet his once again, and he watches her lift her chin. “I am my father’s daughter.”

“You’re going to Essos with him, then.”

She nods. “Aren’t you?”

Davos hesitates. 

Shireen’s forehead wrinkles in concern. “You aren’t? But…”

“It’s complicated, Princess. I have a wife and children to think of. I can’t simply uproot them from their good home and take them with us to an uncertain place.”

This is something Shireen can understand, so she nods and lets the subject drop, though she doesn’t lose the concern on her face.

xx

“You can’t be Baratheons,” Davos tells them.

Stannis and Shireen look up from the card game Shireen is teaching him.

“Even in Essos, that name is too recognizable,” Davos continues. “You shouldn’t need a family name, but in case, we’ll have to find you another. Mine won’t be an issue, provided we don’t deal with the Iron Bank.”

Shireen brightens. “You’re coming with us, then?”

Davos nods. “I swore I would be faithful to Stannis. Leaving him would violate that oath.”

“What should we be called, if not our own names?” Stannis asks. He looks neither happy nor unhappy that Davos has decided to go with them.

“I think it would be wise for you to share mine,” Davos says slowly. “It’s already familiar to you and not a name with history or enemies.”

Shireen nods quickly.

Stannis nods as well, but there’s something in his expression Davos can’t place.

“Let’s get to work planning this, then.”

xx

Davos lets himself drop heavily into the chair next to Stannis. “Daenerys Targaryen took the throne.”

Stannis nods.

“Any thoughts on that?” Davos asks.

“I’m glad they’ve finished fighting.” He looks up from tunic he’s mending. “Are you expecting this to bring my memories back? It’s been three years.”

Davos shakes his head. “Your memory’s gone. I accept that. You might have been the man to take the throne, though. Maybe you don’t remember, but I suppose I wondered if you felt anything about it all.”

Stannis sets the tunic on his knee, his attention shifting fully to Davos. He isn’t the man Davos fell in love with so slowly even Davos didn’t notice. This Stannis is softer, more open- the man who might have been the first and only Stannis, had his life gone differently. There are traces of the first man in him, of course, but some traits are too entrenched in him to disappear.

His brothers, if they’d both lived, would laugh if they knew that even a rock couldn’t knock the stubbornness out of Stannis. Stubborn and prone to keeping to himself- and handy in a fight, if only because his body remembers what his brain forgot.

“Westeros means nothing to me,” Stannis says slowly. “Perhaps it should- I wouldn’t exist without it. It gave you and Shireen to me. For that, I suppose I can find some scrap of affection. The rest…” He shrugs. “We have good lives in this island. My life is here now. My future is here. I have no interest in the world beyond this.”

_ That rock couldn’t knock the melodrama and monologuing out of him either, _Davos thinks in amusement.

“I’ll drink to that- Oh, gods. Do we have anything left? The neighbors got into the cabinets when they came over last week.”

“I hid a bottle of wine behind the wood pile.”

“You’re a marvel,” Davos says in relief as he hauls himself to his feet. He starts to walk to the wood pile, only to think better of it and turn around.

“Back already?” Stannis asks. He doesn’t look up from his sewing.

“Just a little detour,” Davos tells him. He bends to kiss Stannis’ forehead.

Stannis tilts his head back, probably to squint at Davos, so Davos bends a little farther and kisses him.

“Go get your wine,” Stannis grumbles after a kiss that lasted too long for his irritation to be believable.

“As you command.”

Davos wouldn’t have ever asked for this from the king he served, not in words and not in prayers. He wouldn’t have thought to.

But Stannis Seaworth isn’t a king. He isn’t a god. He’s a quiet man who holds his daughter’s hand and mends clothes for extra coin while his “cousin” works in town.

Westeros may find peace under Daenerys, and it may not. Stannis’ fate isn’t linked to the kingdom anymore.

None of theirs is.


	8. warm heart/beautiful brain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> t, fusion with the sentinel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you’re unfamiliar with the setup from the sentinel, it’s basically someone (the sentinel) having hypersensitive senses (which can make them unwell if one sense gets overstimulated) and someone (the guide) whose role is 98% fanon who helps the first person manage their senses

Davos finds his new master lying on his back on a flat section of the castle’s roof. His eyes are closed and his jaw clenched.

“So, you’re a sentinel.”

Stannis doesn’t open his eyes. “If you tell anyone, you’ll damn us both. I’ll lose my title for hiding it, and you’ll lose your knighthood because they’ll assume you helped me.”

Davos accepts that for the simple truth it is. “Considering you’re up here alone, I’m guessing you haven’t found a guide yet.”

Stannis doesn’t reply, and Davos thinks harder about a man barely in his twenties who was able to hold a castle together against an extended siege. He thinks about that same man personally taking Davos’ fingertips because it was just.

“You won’t be a good lord to your people if you can’t think clearly,” Davos notes.

“I’m not up here because I enjoy it.”

Davos looks down at Stannis’ face and thinks about the woman he left behind, who shook her head at his idea of earning a lord’s favor by feeding him.

He thinks about his mother telling Davos’ sisters the best way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and a sentinel will appreciate good food even more.

He thinks about Stannis refusing to eat and realizes Stannis can probably still taste the boot leather he was chewing.

“I can guide you,” Davk offers.

To Stannis’ credit, he actually considers it.

“Prove it.”

The highborn, in Davos’ experience, are a distant, entitled lot who don’t experience nearly enough consequences. They’re endlessly demanding, taking more gold and more blood and more power they think is theirs, yet they’re also faceless.

Stannis, he can already tell, will be even more demanding than the rest- but he’s also more present. He made sure his men and the wife he doesn’t love got fed before he took his portion. Usually he’s down with the men, starving beside them.

“What’s bothering you the most?”

“The bodies,” Stannis grits.

An extra cruelty, that. To lose people to hunger but not have the respite that comes from burying them- to be reminded of the growing body count even when the bodies are out of sight and not have the option to voice the disgust Stannis can waft w

“Then you’ll have to find another scent to wash it out,” Davos suggests. “You’re a dog chasing the scent of a rabbit in a rabbit warren. Stop running in circles after a scent that won’t lead anywhere and find another one.”

“There aren’t any others,” Stannis grits.

_ He’s very dramatic, _Davos thinks with some amusement. “I beg your pardon, your lordship, but I must disagree. There are too many people here for the only smell to be of death.”

“What else is there when we’re starving?”

“I’d hoped there might be more to us than that, but you’re the sentinel, My Lord. If that’s all humans smell of, I suppose that’s all we smell of.”

Stannis doesn’t reply, but Davos can see his features shifting as he looks for a different scent.

It takes him a long time. His expression starts to go slack a few times, and each time, Davos throws a little rock at him, stopping him from zoning out.

Sentinels are a fragile bunch. They’re supposed to be descended from the Andals who were tasked with guarding the early groups, their senses stronger to make them better protectors in a world full of predators and lacking in armor and castles, but Davos has yet to encounter a sentinel he couldn’t disarm with a bit of perfume or a sustained hum. Even a torch will work if you use it right.

Lying on the ground as he is, Stannis is no different from an infant. He’s entirely at the mercy of the world around him.

The thought sits uncomfortably in Davos’ belly.

“Onions.”

Looking up from the pile of projectiles he’d been building up, Davos meets Stannis’ eyes.

“Your hands. They still smell of onions.”

“Not the best scent, but-”

“No.” Stannis’ voice is firm once again. “No, it’s exactly right.”

He slowly pushes himself upright and heaves himself to his feet with… not grace but a heaviness that makes Davos think of the ocean in a storm. The waves that crash against ships aren’t graceful; they’re too powerful for that. Too inevitable.

On his feet once more, Stannis gives Davos one of his hard looks. “You don’t act like the maesters said guides should.”

“Maesters knows books. They think men can be understood like divisions of plants.”

“You disagree with them, then.”

“I’d like to think I’m more complex than a mushroom, yes.”

He doesn’t get Stannis to smile, but he does get a quirk of Stannis’ lips, which is close enough.

“Come,” Stannis says, striding past Davos. “I have an idea for vexing our enemies.”

Davos, as will become habit, follows.


	9. ecliptic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> t, canon divergence, amnesia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ecliptic: a circle on the celestial sphere that represents the sun's path during the year, called so because lunar and solar eclipses only occur when the moon crosses it

When Salladhor Saan turns up at the gates and demands an audience with Stannis, he does so boldly. There isn’t a hint of fear in him, and why should there be? He's a pirate and not even a Westerosi one. His involvement in the war came at Davos’ request. The Battle of the Blackwater was a decisive loss, Davos is dead, and Stannis has been pushed back to Dragonstone. What is there for Saan to fear?

Stannis gets to his feet to see what Davos’ friend has come to say. He doesn't care, but out of respect for the years of service Davos gave him, Stannis will meet with Saan.

If Saan came for a fight, he did so ill-equipped to win it, but as Stannis rides out to meet the party, Stannis almost hopes he’d try.

A fight might shake off the misery choking him from the inside.

“This is your fault,” Saan says, which gives Stannis something real to tie to his growing, twisted hope that this will give him something worth fighting and surviving.

“What have you come to accuse me of?” he asks. He doesn't have the energy to snap, and he doesn't try. “I’m a busy man, pirate.”

Saan gestures at something behind him. “Yes, you have your war to be king of Westeros. You want people to bow to you, isn’t that right?”g 

_ No,  _ Stannis thinks. He doesn't want bowing. He doesn't want the throne. He doesn't want any of this.

Unaware and uncaring, Saan continues, “A king owes his subjects his protection, does he not? And you're a man who spent a fortune on a daughter. Perhaps some of that sentiment would be well spent on this subject.”

A man on a horse comes forward, and a few paces behind him, astride his own horse, comes Davos.

He looks terrible. His face thin and blistered, and he isn't half as steady in the saddle as he ought to be.

But he’s alive.

Stannis stares at him. He should say something; this is a meaningful reunion. His Onion Knight has come home alive. But what is there to say? Stannis had thought Davos was dead. He had thought the man he’d cared for most in the world, even more than his own kin, had died because of Stannis' order.

“You’ve come back,” he says, for lack of anything more eloquent.

Davos tilts his head to the side and asks, “Do I know you?”

xx

“Salla called you my king.” Davos looks up at Stannis from the bed Pylos commandeered for him. “He said you knew me.”

Stannis swallows down a wave of bile. “I do.”

“He said you’re the reason my sons died.”

Stannis nods.

Davos lets out a long breath through his nose. “I don’t remember having sons. I don’t remember having a wife either, but Salla assured me I took one.” He looks away from Stannis, his eyes drifting to the ceiling. “Everyone I’ve met has told me I’m always at your side. Some of them think we’re friends; some don't. I don’t know who has the right of it or if anyone does because I don’t remember you either.”

Again, Stannis nods. “You’re my Hand,” he says.

“That isn’t an answer.”

“It isn’t,” Stannis agrees.

Davos closes his eyes. “The maester isn’t confident I’ll get my memories back.”

“Confidence is a difficult thing to have about the contents of men’s skulls.”

“Do you want me to remember?”

“Of course.”

Davos opens his eyes and turns his head to fix Stannis with a hard look. “It seems to me, most men would be glad to forget the things their kings ask of them. You must either hate me or need me.”

It could never be the former. Davos frustrates him, but Stannis has never hated him. The thought of Davos remaining a stranger to him makes Stannis’ chest tight, but it's only sentiment. It won't kill him. “I’m your king whether you remember it or not. You will regain your memory.”

His words are greeted by a snort. “I do recall highborn men thinking the world is theirs to command. That’s something.”

“I’m your-”

“King, yes, you already said that.” Davos’ eyes slide over to Stannis. “You should concentrate on winning your war before you name yourself king, I think.”

Jaw clenching, Stannis leaves.

This man, he knows, is not Davos Seaworth.

xx

Stannis doesn't visit Davos again.

xx

Pylos is something of an ill omen. Stannis rarely sees him except when something’s gone wrong.

“He thinks he’s being kept prisoner,” Pylos tells him one morning, looking drawn and tired. “The vile things he says can be put aside as a result of whatever caused him to lose his memory, but he’s become violent as well. We had to restrain him to keep him from hurting us.”

Davos has never caused him trouble- more proof this man is not his Hand. “And?”

“And he’s begun to hurt himself from fighting the restraints, which have done nothing to reassure him he isn’t a prisoner. He’s begun refusing to eat as well.”

This is a headache Stannis doesn’t need. Davos has always smoothed the way for him. Stannis never strategized about stopping him. He never expected he’d have to.

Stannis needs a plan to remove Renly. He’s come up with nothing. Davos could have given him clarity. Hidden among his ill-gotten stories are bits of wisdom; Stannis has relied on him for his understanding of the sea and as a guide. His absence and incomplete return have left him at a greater disadvantage.

He was Stannis’ right hand long before Robert's death, the one man in all the world who held any real affection for Stannis.

Saan was right. As the king, Stannis does have a duty to his subjects.

“I’ll see to him.”

xx

Davos follows Stannis through the castle’s long corridors. “Why are you doing this?”

“You aren’t a prisoner,” Stannis says curtly. “I won’t have you hurting my maester or the men serving him. As you’ve proven yourself unable to remain here without doing violence to them or yourself, I have only one option left.”

Sweeping past the grooms and stable boys, he leads Davos to the horse waiting by the gate. It’s already saddled and laden with two bags of provisions.

This is not the farewell his only friend deserves. It’s worse than sending Davos into wildfire; at least then Davos' fate was certain.

Yet there is no other resolution.

Turning around, Stannis looks down at Davos, whose eyes flick between Stannis and the horse.

“What’s this?” Davos asks. The suspicion in his voice is clear.

“A horse. As I said, you aren’t a prisoner. Walk out of here or ride. I don’t care. Just be done with it.”

Davos frowns. “What happened to us being friends?”

“Friendship ceases to be so when one begins to impede the other. You were useful to me when you were a smuggler who'd decided to make a better man of yourself. Your loyalty to me was something I knew as fact; that made it worthy of being relied on. Anyone can see you no longer feel any such thing. I cannot have a Hand whose loyalty is in question, and if you aren’t my Hand, then I have no use for you.”

“It’s that easy for you?” Davos asks. “You’ll send me on my way like this?”

“You’re a grown man. I gave you shelter while you healed. I gave you food until you refused to accept it. I clothed you.” Stannis’ voice is strained. Everyone must hear it. Any hesitation he might have felt dissolves in the wave of humiliation that follows that. “You’ve insisted on being a stranger to me, so I am a stranger to you.”

Davos looks up at the sky. “I’ve never believed in gods, but somehow this feels like an act of one.”

“You’ve overstayed your welcome, smuggler,” Stannis grits. “Begone.”

“As you command, Your Grace.”

Dressed in his own clothes, things Stannis unearthed from his own wardrobe he'd kept as a matter of convenience for Davos, Davos strides past him and takes the waiting horse’s reins from the boy standing at its head.

He doesn’t bid anyone farewell. He merely squeezes the horse’s sides and flees.

Would that he’d done that in Storm’s End instead of offering himself to Stannis.

xx

“This is insanity.”

Stannis doesn’t look up from his map. “Lady Melisandre. What brings you to me this evening, unannounced?”

“This plan to defeat Renly won't work.” She stalks into the room, her long hair flowing behind her. “You’ll send your men to be slaughtered, and your brother will have your head along with theirs. It's an affront to your intelligence and to R’hllor to do this so recklessly. This is beyond what even a god should think to do.”

“I can handle Renly.”

“Yes, but you cannot handle his men.” Melisandre shakes her head. “Your Onion Knight would tell you the same.”

“Don’t,” Stannis warns.

“Am I wrong?” she challenges. “This plan is poorly made, and you know it.”

“Careful.”

“I am. It’s you who isn’t.” She looks at him with something too close to pity. “Azor Ahai had to drive Lightbringer into Nissa Nissa to give the blade life-”

Stannis grits his teeth. “If this is a metaphor, I don’t need it.”

“He made the sacrifice because there was good to be done after it,” Melisandre continues. “You are Azor Ahai reborn, but this is not an equivalent sacrifice. The flames show only darkness around you now. You should be taking care and rebuilding, not running with your chest bared into an unsheathed sword.”

The map crumples in Stannis’ clenching fists.

“Go.”

Melisandre nods, the ruby at her throat catching the light as she does, and leaves.

xx

“I cannot contain him,” Melisandre tells Pylos. “I knew the man was meaningful, and difficult as he was, he did make the king’s temperament more even. Is there no chance his memory will return? There are too many important battles to come, and as he is now…”

“The king will lose them,” Pylos finishes. “He’s distracted and belligerent, and he isn’t a man who bears his own belligerence well.”

Melisandre shakes her head. “He’s making plans that must not be acted upon.”

“The brain is complex. I can make no guarantees.”

“Is there nothing that can be done?”

Pylos hesitates; Melisandre sees it in the shift of his eyes.

“What is it? What do you know?”

“Before he left, Ser Davos did say certain things that made me wonder if perhaps his memory had not been taken from him entirely.”

“What things?”

Pylos shakes his head, and though he’s still a young man, he looks at her with the quiet certainty of a man thrice his age. “They were thoughts he did not mean to share. Personal thoughts. I will not repeat them, distorted though they were.”

Sensing she will get nowhere further with the maester, Melisandre leaves him. The flames may have something more useful.

xx

It’s only by chance that Stannis sees the beast. The hour is late, but he can’t sleep. There’s too much to be done. Too many rivals to strategize against. Too many threats to dismantle. Too many tempers to balance without his Hand to ease the burden.

Shireen has been nearly invisible since Davos left. She’s never been the type of child that requires constant attending, and she knows to keep out of the way. Still, Stannis would see her regularly in certain places.

He’s a poor father. He has no instinct for soothing children. He has no comfort, no wisdom to offer her to make the future less frightening. The world is dark, and they must live in it- all this, she already knows.

Yet she is his heir. Even if he cannot comfort her, he cannot neglect her entirely. If she were to disappear as well-

The shape is little more than a shadow creeping across the roof, but the movement is unnatural and catches Stannis’ eye. He doesn’t stop, merely shifts his route to follow as he watches the shape slowly cross the roof, ignoring window after window until it stops above one in particular.

Shireen’s window.

Stannis breaks into a sprint. He doesn’t know what manner of creature has come to take his daughter, but it won’t leave with her.

His sword is drawn, his hand wrapped firmly around the pommel, when he reaches Shireen’s room and kicks the door open. 

Inside, his daughter is sitting on the floor in her nightgown. She shouts and throws herself forward when she sees him, but Stannis has already seen the creature behind her.

“Not a magical assassin, then,” he says, lowering the point of his sword. His voice is uneven, and it pains him as it did the last time he was faced with this man. “Just a man who’s forgotten his place.”

Davos doesn’t shrink from him.

“I invited Davos,” Shireen says, her face earnest as she faces him. Her voice is shaking harder than Stannis’; she still hasn’t learned to feign confidence. “I told him to come back if ever had any questions, Father, and he has been. He’s only doing what I said.”

“And what sorts of questions does he have that necessitate his sneaking through my castle like a thief?”

“I’m merely a smuggler, Your Grace,” Davos replies. “I’ve no talent for taking things, only moving them.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

Shireen glances between them. “He wanted to know where his pouch went.”

Stannis grits his teeth. “How do you know about that?”

“I remembered it.”

“A lie.”

Davos shakes his head. “It is not, and if Your Grace would allow me, I will prove it.”

“How do you intend to do that?” Stannis asks. He hasn’t sheathed his sword; the weight of it in his hand is comforting.

“I’d rather not do this in front of the princess,” Davos replies. “It’s late, anyway. She should be sleeping.”

Shireen’s grasp only tightens on his tunic.

“Come, then,” Stannis orders.

“Davos!” Shireen pleads. “Please. I want to come.”

Stannis grinds his teeth as Davos reassures her. It’s too close to the sound of the true Davos comforting Shireen.

“I know you do, Princess, but this is the king’s business. You and I are subject to it as much as anyone.” A soft rasp follows, and Stannis knows without looking that Davos kissed the top of Shireen’s head.

“Are you finished?” he asks, patience wearing thin.

“Yes, Your Grace,” Davos replies. “Where would you have us go?”

Stannis jerks his head in the general direction of another room and sets off.

Davos follows without being told, keeping a single step behind him. His gait is unchanged. Stannis itches more the more of Davos’ familiar footsteps he hears.

It occurs to Stannis too late that the room he picked- his bedchamber- is the wrong place for this. He doesn’t acknowledge the tactical error. Instead, he sheathes his sword and seats himself at the small table he uses when he can’t sleep and needs to work. Davos waits at the threshold until Stannis gestures at him to enter and take a chair for himself.

Davos doesn’t take the chair opposite Stannis. Instead, he takes the one to Stannis’ right. It’s his usual place, and Stannis itches more when Davos takes it without a second thought.

“Well?” Stannis asks. “Have you forgotten how to speak?”

“I haven’t. I merely thought it better not to try your patience by speaking out of turn.”

“If my preference that rules be followed is your proof, you’ll find yourself coming up short.”

Davos’ expression shifts slightly, and he looks almost sad. “I find myself doing so more often than I care to think of. I don’t claim to remember everything, Your Grace. Not even close. I’d intended to wait until I had more.”

“Are you asking to leave?” Stannis asks.

“No, Your Grace. I’m only- It’s an odd thing, to see a man you’ve served most of your life and know him without recognizing him.” Perhaps sensing Stannis’ irritation, Davos continues, “I feel I know you. When you speak, what you say seems… fitting. The way you hold yourself, the words you choose, the way you look at me- all of these are familiar. Yet your name is only a name. It’s akin to knowing the meaning of a word you want to use but being unable to think of the word itself.”

“A pretty comparison.”

“But not one that proves my claims.” Davos nods to himself. “But the pouch may. It isn’t something many people know about. I wear it under my clothes; I remember that. It’s a reminder to myself, I’d think, not the people around me. I find its absence unsettling.”

Stannis searches Davos’ face for some hint of a lie, but all he finds is frustration.

“What’s inside it?”

Davos shakes his head. “I don’t know. More than one thing, I think. I remember touching it at some point, and it had an uneven weight, like a bag of marbles but lighter. Less round.”

“Why do you care about it, then?”

“As I said, it’s unsettling-”

“The last time you were here, you were convinced I was holding you against your will. That, too, was unsettling, I’d think. Feelings aren't evidence."

Davos glances away, and his forehead wrinkles. He’s never looked away from Stannis. He’s never been ashamed of what he’s done. “I don’t know why I thought that. When Salla first brought me back and I saw you, I knew-” He cuts himself off. “I have no reason to give you. I have none for myself.”

Swallowing, Stannis prompts, “What did you know?”

“Nothing, Your Grace. I misspoke.”

“I will decide what’s nothing for myself. When you saw me, what did you know?”

Davos draws a deep breath and looks at Stannis squarely. “I knew I’d returned. The sea didn’t feel like my home anymore, nor did talking with Salla, but following you into the castle felt like something I was used to doing. It didn't require any thought; you were there, so I followed you.” He draws a breath. “I don’t remember all we’ve done, but I am still your man, Your Grace.”

The truth of the matter is, Stannis wants Davos back. He never wanted to send Davos away in the first place, and he dislikes the mood that’s settled over his forces in Davos’ absence.

Yet he can’t risk another blow. If Davos came back and had to be dismissed again, it would be catastrophic. The men don’t love Stannis. They fight for him out of respect. Knowing he ejected Davos a second time would shatter that respect.

“There is one more thing, if you would permit it.”

Pulled from his thoughts by Davos’ voice, Stannis nods.

“Shireen told me how we met- that I stole past a navy with food for you and your starving men. There’s one detail she couldn’t have known about the siege, I think.” He scratches at his beard, which has grown out long and unkempt. “When I first met Lady Selyse, my hand was still bandaged. She was pregnant and hungry, which would put anyone in a foul mood, so I never questioned why she grew so angry when she saw it.”

He pauses and gives Stannis a long, searching look before he continues.

“She never did take to me, did she? I don’t blame her for it, though I don't think I understood for a long time. I was a good knight. I served you faithfully. What was there for her to find distasteful in me that she ignored in others?” He leans forward and lays his right hand on the table between them. “You aren’t a lenient man. You don’t forget transgressions. Yet this was all you required of me. A knighthood, land, a future… All of this was mine in exchange for four bits of flesh I could have easily lost at sea.”

“Enough,” Stannis interrupts. “I believe you.”

“Do you, Your Grace? Or do you merely wish to avoid hearing me say things you don’t want to hear?”

Stannis clenches his jaw and refuses to look away.

After a moment, Davos leans back in his chair. He pulls his hand away with him.

“That was a gamble. I wasn’t certain whether I was right to trust the feeling I had that you would want the truth from me, much less hard truths like the one you won’t let me speak.”

“What do you want?” Stannis’ voice grates. “Why are you digging at things best left buried?”

“I want to be your Hand again,” Davos says simply. “I’ve known who I serve since Salla brought me back, and I want to go back to doing that, serving you as I ought to.”

Stannis closes his eyes. He hasn’t slept well since Davos was cast into the bay. Exhaustion is tugging at him as roughly as hands made of flesh, an image that only serves to remind him of the day Davos mentioned. Stannis and Selyse have never had a happy marriage, but before Davos, there had been something approaching a mutual understanding. They were miserable together, and together, they would be miserable.

Then Davos came with his fish and onions, and Selyse had never forgiven him.

“You can’t return as if nothing happened,” Stannis tells Davos as he opens his eyes. “Pylos will have to declare you fit, and you’ll have to catch up on all you’ve missed in your absence.”

Davos’ face softens as it has a thousand times before. “Then you’ll have me as your Hand again?”

“Is that not what I just told you?”

“Thank you, Your Grace.” His voice is soft, and Stannis is reminded sharply of how faithful a man he's had in Davos. “I won’t fail you.”

“See that you don’t,” Stannis tells him crisply.

Davos doesn’t get up despite the clear dismissal.

Stannis raises his brows. “Is there something else?”

“May I have the pouch back?” Davos asks. “I don’t wish to impose on your good will further, but I would serve you better, I think, if I weren’t distracted by wondering about it.”

“You'll have it by morning,” Stannis assures him. “There's no reason to keep it from you. I trust you can survive another night without it.”

The relief on Davos’ face changes it entirely. “Thank you, Your Grace. Unless you have anything to ask of me, I’ll see you in the morning.”

Stannis nods, and this time, Davos leaves.

It isn’t until the door has shut and Stannis has heard Davos’ footsteps fade and disappear that he walks to his desk and opens the top drawer.

Inside, hidden beneath two books, rests Davos’ pouch.

Tomorrow, Stannis will return Davos’ bones. They’ll hang around Davos’ neck where they belong, and Davos will return to Stannis, where he belongs.

The world won't be righted by any of this. It isn't a victory. It isn't even righting a wrong.

Yet for the moment, before he places the pouch on his desk, Stannis lets himself claim it as a victory. His Onion Knight returning to him is more good fortune than he’s had in far too long.


	10. i'm a mess (still better than a wreck)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> t, modern au, accidental marriage

**** The silver ring on Stannis’ finger has a massive “gem” set into it- or, more accurately, onto it.

From the mess around it, he suspects at least three types of glue were involved in sticking it into place.

“Did you give me a plastic engagement ring?” he asks. He knows the answer, but he wants to hear Davos admit to what he did.

Davos groans and throws his arms over his face, the picture of a hungover man trying to hide from his mistakes.

Stannis’ teeth ache, and he forces himself to unclench his jaw.

“Davos,” he prompts.

“If you’re wearing a plastic ring, then I suppose that’s what I gave you.”

Davos sounds miserable.

The petty part of Stannis is glad. Davos  _ should  _ be miserable. This is his fault. The “what’s the harm in a shot or two between friends?” drinks were his idea. The breath on Stannis’ neck in his blurry memories was his.

“And you chose rose gold wedding bands to go with them, as if we aren’t both in our fifties.”

“Blame Shireen,” Davos groans. He’s sprawled across Stannis’ hotel bed despite it being four in the afternoon. The hem of his undershirt has risen above his navel and the unzipped front of his sole pair of nice slacks has slipped below the wide waistband of his black boxers.

Despite the grimace, Davls’ eyes are bright, and he keeps letting his head loll into Stannis’ hip.

He isn’t that attractive. He isn’t ugly, but he’s quietly appealing. Those looks don’t land men contracts or places on magazine covers.

He’s so handsome Stannis can’t look at him for long.

“Why am I blaming my daughter for your poor decision?” Stannis asks, forcing his eyes away from Davos.

“She’d been telling me I should repaint my apartment, and I made the mistake of telling her to come to me with a plan to redo it. I should have known she’d take me up on it.” His back cracks audibly as he stretches. Stannis winces, but Davos sighs in relief. “She really is her father’s daughter. She knocked on my door with three folders under her arm, each with its own color scheme, list of pros and cons, and estimates for paint costs based on where I’d buy.”

Shireen is in law school. She shouldn’t have time to hound Davos.

“I don’t see what bearing that has on your choice of ring.”

“Apparently, I chose the one color scheme that necessitates replacing all my fixtures with ones in rose gold.”

“That’s absurd.”

“That’s your daughter trying to get me to relocate, you mean.” Davos is smiling as he says it, and a knot that had been forming in Stannis’ chest loosens.

Shireen may as well be one of Davos’ own children. He’s never missed one of her school plays. Her science fair projects have always been lauded because he lent her his time and knowledge. He’s picked her up from sleepovers and carried her on his shoulders

He let her paint his fingernails one night as he and Stannis ran numbers in Stannis’ kitchen, and when Shireen pointed out that he only has five fingernails, he let her slap the paint on the toes of one foot.

He hadn’t minded the ribbing he got at work the next day. When Stannis asked him after everyone else had left, he’d shuffled the papers on his desk and said he’d hoped he and Marya would eventually have a daughter.

Stannis has done his best not to think too much about that.

“I’ll speak to her about it,” Stannis tells him. “She’s gotten-”

“Confident?” Davos asks. He raises his brows at Stannis. “She spent years cowering from her own shadow. Let her push an old man around. If it were a problem, I would have said so.”

Davos isn’t old.

Stannis doesn’t say that.

“We should find someone who can annul this,” he says instead. “I doubt we consummated it, so there should be no problem.”

Davos doesn’t reply.

“Davos,” Stannis prompts.

“Sorry, yeah,” Davos says, sitting up quickly. “I should have- Of course you want to. Give me one minute. My phone should be around here somewhere-”

Davos is fond of pointing out that he knows Stannis through and through because he’s been at Stannis’ side for decades, but he fails to remember that the reverse is true- Stannis knows Davos just as well.

Grabbing Davos’ arm is instinctive.

“Of course I want to?” he repeats.

Davos swallows. “Fix this,” he says. “Of course you want to fix it.”

“My question was about the pronoun, not the verbiage.”

“It’s too early-”

“You don’t want an annulment.”

Davos winces again, but he doesn’t look away. “You know I don’t.”

“Why?”

_ Why do you do things like this?  _ is what Stannis wants to ask.  _ Why do I want you so much? Why do you want to stay with me when no one else can stomach the thought? Why do you look after my daughter as if it’s natural to you? _

_ Why haven’t you found someone else to love? _

Davos splutters a laugh. “I don’t know.” He waves off Stannis’ protest. “I can’t take it apart and name the pieces like it’s a model ship. All I can tell you is I’ve loved you since the night I showed up at your office, soaking wet and holding your SnackScramble order, which was late because I’d had to run it to you after the guy who was supposed to bring it bailed. You took one look at me and the box in my hands and offered me a job. You’re a better man than people think. Far better.”

Stannis watches Davos and waits. There’s more to this. He can feel it.

Davos gives him a one-armed shrug. “I know a few divorce lawyers. I’m sure one of them can get us the paperwork. I’m not sure we actually filed any papers, but better safe that sorry, I suppose.”

He pulls back, trying to get to his feet, but Stannis tightens his grip.

That isn’t what Davos should have said. Stannis knows him; he knows when Davos isn’t telling him everything.

“What?” Davos asks.

“You can’t tell me you love me and then turn around and call a divorce lawyer.”

“Not when you’re holding me like this and my phone is in the other room.” He pauses for a moment. “I think it’s in there.”

Stannis shakes his head. “You can’t just… give me what I want and then walk away as if you didn’t.”

Davos stares at him, wide-eyed, so Stannis repeats himself. “You can’t say what I’ve wanted to hear you say for years then walk away and pretend you said nothing.”

“I got that part. I’m confused about the bit before it. The bit where you said I gave you what you want,” he prompts when Stannis doesn’t answer.

“Don’t ask me about love,” Stannis says, glaring at Davos. This is excruciating. He doesn’t want to let go. “I don’t have any answers.”

“But you want me to love you.”

“I see the imbalance, and I don’t-”

Davos kisses him.

It isn’t like last night, when there were three Davoses and none of them could seem to find Stannis’ lips. Last night was a stomach-churning reminder of why Stannis doesn’t drink; everything turned hazy and messy and abruptly disappeared into nothing.

This time, Davos kisses him the right way, and he leans into Stannis because he wants to be closer, not because he’s had so much he can’t stay upright.

“I see it, too,” Davos tells him, voice soft. “I see it, and I recognize it.”

“What do I do? Tell me, Davos. You always have a solution.”

Davos kisses the highest point of Stannis’ cheek. “I can’t be impartial this time. I want you to trust me. I want you to let me love you.”

“That isn’t a solution.”

“Maybe there isn’t one. Maybe you have to say no or let us try and see where it takes us.”

Stannis swallows.

“I’m not wearing this,” he says, releasing Davos to remove the awful engagement ring. He hesitates when he looks at the wedding band, though, and Davos curls his fingers around it.

“We aren’t married yet. Let me have this back so I can give your ring to you the right way.”

Taking a second wedding band off hurts, but Davos takes away the sting with a soft kiss and a reminder that they have the rest of the week off.

Stannis lies back, and Davos follows, letting himself be stretched out over Stannis.

He looks down at Stannis with an expression Stannis has never seen before, but Davos doesn’t share what he’s thinking. He just dips his head for another kiss, and for the moment, that’s all Stannis wants.


	11. in your room (we’ve been here for weeks now)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> t, canon universe, the sentinel fusion

Someone, Davos thinks, played quite a trick with Stannis Baratheon. Overlooked, dry-humored Stannis, who’s no one's first choice. Stannis, who’s smarter than both of his brothers but not half as well-liked as either. Stannis, who has as much give as wrought iron.

Guides, it’s commonly known, are gentle souls. They have to be, to be able to calm sentinels and talk them back into sanity. You don’t find them seeking out knighthoods because they despise spilling blood. They’re teachers and healers. They’re doting parents of hordes of children.

Not Stannis Baratheon.

Davos has been at Stannis’ side for a long time, though. He’s seen good and gentle men show their teeth, and he’s seen seen unforgiving men relent.

Stannis isn’t soft, but there’s kindness in that. You know where you stand with him. He’s a constant force; yes, he’s resolved to wage war until he wins or dies, but he’s focused about it. He doesn’t spill blood for the sake of spilling it. The throne isn’t his goal because he wants power.

Given a reminder of that- given a reminder that he’s a good man- Stannis can back down from violence. The world he’ll shape doesn’t have to be built on bones; he can push back against the Red Witch and her hungry god without sacrificing his goal.

Shifting closer, Davos noses at Stannis’ bare shoulder.

He knows Stannis isn’t asleep yet; his heart is beating too fast.

“If you intend to tell me you aren’t yet satisfied, I’ll remind you that I am,” Stannis informs him tartly.

Davos chuckles and shifts closer. “Perhaps I simply like holding you,” he suggests as he curls his arm around Stannis’ waist.

Stannis snorts.

“I’m a sentinel, Your Grace,” Davos points out. “And I’m yours at that. Forgive the impertinence, but in this area, I do know more than you.”

He feels Stannis shake his head, but Stannis also lays a hand over Davos’.

“If you don’t mean to make more of a mess, then I’ll be going to sleep.”

Davos make more of a mess? He feels his brows shoot up. That’s an interesting way of describing the state of their bed when Stannis was the one yanking at Davos’ clothes.

Rather than point that out, Davos cranes his neck to kiss Stannis’ cheek. “As you wish. I’ll just remove myself from you-”

Stannis’ hand closes around Davos’ wrist.

“You will stay as you are.”

“Is that an order?”

“It is.”

Making Stannis a guide was a good trick, Davos knows. He would have been discouraged from leading men into battle had anyone known, so he became a tactician from childhood, hiding himself away so well no one thought to question him.

And no one did. Even other sentinels, who ought to have picked up on the way Stannis can command older, angrier men and hold in bloodthirsty ones when he shouldn’t, didn’t notice anything off about their lord.

Davos only did because Stannis decided he liked the smuggler who brought him a boat full of fish and onions. Gods only know why, but he did. Davos was given a place of honor, and from there, he saw Stannis, in his curt way, be a guide to his forces- and Davos as well. 

Battle-proven and bloodied now, awkward and little loved, he’s Davos’ guide and his king.

The two aren’t so different.

“I’m your Hand,” Davos acknowledges, curling up closer to lie flush against Stannis’ back. “I’m yours to command.”

“Then stop talking and sleep.”

Hiding his smile in his pillow, Davos does as he’s told. 


	12. Intactfront Valley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> e, modern (ish), cowboys

****Mountains are cold and unforgiving. Plants can survive on them, even flourish. Certain animals can do the same- but not humans.

It’s fitting, then, that Stannis lives in them.

He likes the long silences. He’s happier on his own; the unending solitude of only having horses and cattle and the distant howls of wolves suits him. He doesn’t need to speak, and the rules set out by nature are absolute.

You cannot survive if you don’t bow to the natural world. You don’t dress for the weather, you get sick. You push too hard, try to make glory out of something that isn’t made for it, you get hurt or worse. Mistreat your mount, fail to secure your belongings, don’t set up camp right… Anything you do wrong, you suffer for.

There’s an order to nature that Stannis appreciates.

Davos, who’s perched on the back of his workhorse mare and clutching his thermos of coffee, is another matter.

There isn’t an invitation to talk that Davos won’t gladly take. He’s amiable and full of stories. When they cross paths with people, Davos is the one who handles it because they like him and he likes them. They hear about his ex-wife who still lives in New England and his seven sons who live up down both coasts and shake their heads as he describes his first time on a horse after a lifetime on the sea.

Stannis can’t blame them. He’s as taken with Davos as they are.

They make a good team. Davos is careful, but Stannis can see the streak of impulsivity in him. Perhaps it’s his age that keeps it in check. Perhaps he isn’t actually impulsive so much as desperate.

Regardless, where Stannis plans extensively, ensuring there are no deviations from their course, Davos is ready to shift to accommodate whatever deviation they’re forced to take when Stannis’ plans inevitably can’t overcome something.

Davos is handsome, with his neat beard and solid shoulders. He fills out the back of his jeans well, which isn’t something Stannis wants to notice but does. He notices Davos’ thighs and his callused hands. He notices Davos’ good nature, his willingness to sit quietly on long rides when other men insisted on talking, his uncomplicated loyalty to Stannis-

That’s the rarest of qualities. Stannis isn’t a likable man; most of the men contracted to make the ride with him before Davos arrived barely lasted one trip. For a long time, the longest any man managed was two.

This is Davos’ seventh.

If Stannis were to make a full accounting of Davos’ loyalty, then he would add the black eye and lifetime ban from a night in one of the two bars in town he knows for certain Davos got for the privilege of telling someone Stannis isn’t terrible.

“You’re going to fall off if your horse takes off,” Stannis tells him.

Davos grunts. “Black Betha’s never taken off in her life without my say-so. Your horse, though…”

He’s right. Stannis’ gelding is the one that gets spirited. That’s what he gets for trusting Renly’s taste in horses- only his younger brother would find a feisty gelding, a rarity in its own right, and think he'd found his brother the ideal trail horse.

“I suppose I’d be testy, too, if I’d been named Dragonstone, though," Davos adds.

“Renly was on a fantasy kick,” Stannis reminds him, exhaustion at the memory making him twitchy. He feels an echo of the horror he felt when Renly gave him the papers signing the horse over to him. “At the last family meal, Loras revealed the other option Renly considered was Storm’s End, so I suspect Robert had a hand in things.”

Given Dragonstone’s white coat, calling him Storm’s End would at least have been thematically appropriate.

“That does sound like Robert.” Davos stretches out of his slouch. “How are your brothers? I know Robert's bothering alligators in Florida, but you haven't mentioned Renly. Is he still doing interior design?”

“He is. Loras has joined him, so now Renly can advertise having a landscaping service. A shame they don’t know any builders- it could have been a complete outfit.”

“Well, that isn’t entirely true,” Davos muses. “They know me, and I’m still technically a master carpenter. Had to pay my way through trade school, so I got in some man hours as a builder. A lot of man hours, actually.” He frowns into the distance. "That was a long time ago, wasn't it? Seven Hells."

“I suspect they’re trying to keep it a business between romantic partners, so unless you’d like to join in their marital bliss…?”

“Now that’s an idea. I’m not sure they’re into bears, though.” He tilts his head, pretending to consider. “Even if I were their age, I just don’t think they’d take to me half so well as you have.”

If it were anyone else, Stannis wouldn’t ask, but this is Davos.

“I’d be correct in saying the bear you say you are isn’t indicative of some sort of werewolf-adjacent situation, correct?”

Davos laughs, the sound echoes around them, and oddly, Stannis doesn’t mind it.

xx

Davos keeps the first aid kit in his saddlebags. It used to ride with Stannis, but for some reason Stannis can’t recall now, he’d given it to Davos on the second day of their journey.

The kit is a big one, so Stannis naturally reached for the biggest bag first. He was right to because the kit is right there, full of alcohol wipes and bandages and sterile pads and enough antibiotic cream to cover both of them from head to toe.

On top of it, though, is a translucent bag with a roll of condoms and a bottle of lube.

Stannis stares at them, and for a long moment, all he can think is, _ Good thing he didn’t pack any toys or this would be uncomfortable. _

Setting the bag on the ground, Stannis pulls the kit out and selects what he needs to patch himself up.

Davos is off currying favor with Dragonstone. Stannis watches them as he absently cleans and covers a cut on his thumb.

For a horse who doesn’t like anyone, Dragonstone is unaccountably friendly with Davos. He’s cordial with Black Betha as well, which is beyond Stannis. Everyone before Davos and his mare was unwelcome, but the first day they showed up, Stannis’ unfriendly horse didn’t so much as swish his tail sharply.

Done, Stannis returns the kit and Davos’ bagto the saddlebag.

“Are you finished trying to steal my horse or are you going to have lunch?” he calls as he makes his way to the pot hanging over their fire.

“I’m coming,” Davos replies, turning and making his way to Stannis. “He’s the one who came snuffling over at me, for the record. We’ve got a long way to go yet, and I don’t want to offend him.”

He says this with his usual warmth. He’s been warm to Stannis from the day they met.

He came in the night before they were due to leave- Stannis’ original partner backed out, and Davos, who dodged past security, made a case for himself. A successful one at that.

Stannis, without realizing it, came to lean on Davos. He’s never leaned on anyone, but Davos has been an unflinching companion. He’s honest and dependable, and he doesn’t try to jockey for authority. Davos’ questions- and arguments- come from a loyalty Stannis had never managed to inspire in anyone before. He rarely had trouble with the men he’d worked with before Davos, but none of them ever liked him.

Davos likes him.

It’s a strange feeling, being liked.

“He’s a horse, Davos. I’m sure if you offer him a carrot, he’ll love you forever.”

The smile he gets in reply is slightly crooked.

“Is that how I went wrong with Marya” Davos asks. “I asked her out for dinner but failed to give her a carrot?”

Stannis snorts and shakes his head. “If that’s the case, I suppose Selyse and I were doomed from the start by more than our individual preferences.”

Davos coughs a laugh, and his smile evens out. “You said there was lunch, as I recall?”

“Beans,” Stannis tells him.

The look of resignation on Davos’ face is familiar and makes Stannis feel warm despite the creeping cold.

xx

“You went through my bag.”

There’s no accusation in Davos’ voice as he crawls into his sleeping bag.

Stannis, already settled in for the night, says, “I did. I cut myself and needed a bandage.”

“That explains the blood, then.”

Neither of them speaks for so long, Stannis starts to hope Davos isn’t going to press this any further.

He knows better, though, and Davos is too constant to disappoint him.

“You saw the other bag, then.”

“I did.”

Davos is quiet for another stretch before he says, “We don’t have to talk about this, do we?”

“I was fully prepared not to acknowledge I’d seen anything.”

“Right.”

That should be it, but Davos is odd about things sometimes.

“You’re an adult,” Stannis tells him, so tired he’s already drifting off. “You didn’t take any of it from me, and the bottle is in a container it can’t soak through and make a mess of the first aid kit. It doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

“I suppose it doesn’t,” Davos replies. His voice is so soft, it blurs, and as sleep falls over him, Stannis isn’t even sure Davos actually said anything at all.

xx

The rain is coming down like knives. Stannis half expected to be covered in bruises when he ducked into their tent and took his wet clothes off.

Davos, who followed him in, doesn’t strip.

“You forgot your sleeping bag,” Stannis guesses. Their tent is small and simple. There’s nowhere Davos could have hidden it, even if he’d decided he wanted to.

Nodding, Davos sighs. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

“Don’t.”

Freezing with one hand reaching toward the flap, Davos glances up at him, brow furrowed. “Don’t?”

Uncomfortably aware that he’s naked save his socks and his boxers, which are just as wet as the rest of his clothes, Stannis swallows and nods. “It's still pouring. The ground will only be more dangerous, and you nearly fell on your way in.”

“It was a simple misstep.”

“Which I’m sure will be of great comfort to your family when another simple misstep sees you falling and snapping your neck, I’m sure,” Stannis says. “It isn’t worth it.”

Davos looks up at him with soft eyes. He’s always been the only person who could read Stannis’ fears for what they are and not take offense. “I’m cold, Stannis,” he answers, his voice equally soft. “I can’t sleep when I’m cold.”

“Then have mine.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“I know the cold doesn’t bother me as it bothers you. I know going outside right now would be tantamount to suicide. I know I’d rather not carry your corpse.”

The last part is over dramatic. He knows it is.

Davos turns to look up at him properly.

A gust of frigid wind blasts the tent, and Stannis shivers.

“You put too much on yourself,” Davos tells him. “I don’t want to carry your corpse either.”

“Don’t go out there.”

When it comes to driving the cattle, Stannis has seniority. He has experience and knowledge Davos doesn’t have.

In their tent, Davos has seniority. He’s older than Stannis. He’s seen more of the world, known more people. He reads them like Stannis reads changes in the herd. Yet he rarely pushes when they’re here. He spends all day following Stannis’ lead. He should be tired of Stannis. He should want to press his advantage. Everyone else always has.

Even Melisandre, the woman Stannis had nearly proposed to just two years ago, had pushed him to be what he isn’t.

Davos never has. Davos knows him, and Davos is the only one who’s fought to make Stannis a better man without making him a different one.

He’s more precious to Stannis than the herd. He’s worth more than a year’s paycheck- more than every paycheck since they began working together.

Stannis loves him so much it hurts. He won’t lose Davos to the rain. If he has to wrestle Davos’ bigger body into the sleeping bag and hold him there all night, he won’t lose his closest friend.

Davos swallows. “If I don’t go, what do we do? I won’t kick you out of your own sleeping bag. I’m not compromising on that.”

The solution is obvious.

“We’ll share.”

Stannis nods to himself and turns around to swap his wet boxers for a dry pair. He tugs his socks off as well and lays them with his other discarded clothes.

When he turns around, Davos is still looking up at him.

“What?”

Davos shakes his head. “Just considering the logistics of how to get kicked the least.”

Snorting, Stannis bends down to unroll his sleeping bag. “Perhaps you’ll remember that next time before you forget your sleeping bag,” 

“Perhaps I will.”

Davos pulls off his wet clothes inelegantly. He isn’t a graceful man as a rule, and maneuvering clothes that are heavy with rain they’ve soaked up with limbs clumsy with cold doesn’t make him moreso.

Stannis turns away when Davos reaches for his bag. They’re comfortable with each other, and Stannis has little use for most social etiquette, but this is one unspoken rule he understands.

“How do we get in?” Davos asks once he’s clad in dry clothes. He’s pulled a shirt and loose pants on, a matching set he bought because Shireen, five at the time, thought he should have the novelty onion pajamas.

Davos has always been more indulgent of Baratheons than anyone.

“You get in first,” Stannis orders. “I’ll take the side by the zipper because you’ll get cold if you do.”

It’s a relief when Davos doesn’t argue.

The feeling of Davos’ body pressed against his is less of one. Stannis has never liked being touched, and being trapped in here with Davos doesn’t magically cure him of that. It’s strange and uncomfortable. He likes having Davos close, but this is-

“I didn’t think you could get more tense without popping something,” Davos’ voice says, inches from Stannis’ ear.

“You sounds like my brothers,” Stannis tells him, wrestling with the urge to wriggle away. 

“But Robert and Renly were probably saying it to get under your skin. I’m saying it because I’m relieved you aren’t always walking around as tense as humanly possible.”

It’s a strange reassurance.

“Go to sleep, Davos. Tomorrow will be difficult.”

Davos hums his agreement.

It isn’t long before Stannis falls asleep. Davos’ presence is familiar even if the shape of his body isn’t, and the shifting of his chest as he breathes is steady, so steady Stannis lets himself sink into the motion the way Davos described riding waves when he was a sailor and doesn’t fight against the pull of sleep.

xx

Stannis isn’t good at tending to people when they’re hurt. Whenever Shireen gets sick, he’s the one who washes her sheets and calls the doctor. The time Renly broke his arm riding, Stannis carried him all the way back home where they finally had cell service, drove him to the emergency room, and took care of all the paperwork. He paid the bills and went to work everyday when their sons were stillborn. He cooked and chose things Selyse could eat.

But he couldn’t comfort her. He didn’t know where to lay his hand on Renly to make the pain lessen. He can’t find the words or the instinct to touch his daughter’s back to calm her when she’s gotten sick all day.

He knows this about himself, and he doesn’t waste time being sad about it.

Looking down at Davos, who’s still covered in mud from being flung into the mud, Stannis can’t find it in himself to wish he were a different man. He is who he is- if he had to change anything, he would change the world around him so it wouldn’t demand the impossible from him.

If he must be unyielding, which he does, that ought to mean something to someone.

“I’m sorry.”

Stannis shakes his head. “It’s done.”

“No, you said you weren’t convinced the trail I’d spotted was safe. I should have known you meant you wanted to check it on foot first. I would have seen-”

“As I said,” Stannis interrupts, “it’s done. You survived, the herd is fine, and even Dragonstone is no worse for it.”

Davos opens his eyes and looks up into Stannis’ face. “I wouldn’t leave you alone, you know.”

Stannis swallows. “You didn’t hit your head.”

“I didn’t,” Davos agrees. “You looked like you thought I was going to go somewhere, so I thought I’d tell you I’m not.”

His lips curl up slightly in the beginning of a smile, but as he moves to sit up, he winces. “My shoulder really does hurt,” he complains. “It’s my own fault, I know.”

Stannis nods but doesn’t move away as Davos sits up.

They’re too close now. Stannis can feel Davos’ breath on his skin. He can see every smudge of dirt on Davos’ face. He can smell the mud that covers Davos’ beard.

If he kissed Davos now, some of that dirt would get on Stannis.

Clenching his fists, Stannis says, “I’ll get you a damp cloth.”

“Stannis.”

“I’ll be right back.”

Stannis has never understood cowardice. He understands it even less in himself.

xx

Davos lets himself be pushed onto his back. He isn’t the most handsome man in the world, but he’s the only one Stannis wants.

He’s the only one whose touch hurts Stannis more in its absence.

Stannis tugs Davos’ boxers down, and Davos’ breath stutters.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he rasps.

“You aren’t going anywhere,” Stannis repeats, nodding as he slips Davos’ boxers over his feet and leans forward to kiss Davos’ belly, just below his navel.

There’s a warmth in his eyes Stannis has seen in countless other people but never directed at him.

When Davos pulls him forward, Stannis lets himself be pulled. He doesn’t make a habit of giving men what they want simply because they want it. Perhaps that’s why so few like him.

He wants Davos to have what he wants, though, and Davos wants Stannis.

So in here, in the middle of the night and in their tent where the only light is from the weak electric lantern, Stannis is his.

Maybe he’s Davos’ in more places and more times than this. He thinks he might be.

Davos kisses him softly, and Stannis’ heart is beating too fast when he pulls back.

Davos kisses him again, and he keeps kissing him as Stannis pulls the bottle from Davos’ translucent bag. He keeps kissing Stannis as Stannis spreads Davos’ legs and upends the bottle over the fingers of his right hand. The shortened fingers of Davos’ own right hand remind him of the quiet, constant loyalty Davos has given no one but Stannis.

He remembers the day he had to cut them, and when Davos holds up his palm for Stannis to touch if he wants, Stannis closes his eyes and leans into it.

Touching Davos is easier than being touched by him. Davos is his; Davos chose him. Davos wants him.

Stannis didn’t choose Davos, but as he works his fingers into him, returning Davos’ sloppy kisses, Stannis knows he’s Davos’. He didn’t have to choose. Davos already had, and in being chosen, some part of Stannis knew this man was the one he would keep.

He pushes Davos’ legs further apart and leans on one hand, braced by Davos’ ribs, as he shifts on his knees.

The sound Davos makes when Stannis presses into him is low and relieved. Both of his hands dig into the backs of Stannis’ arms.

Stannis is in over his head. He fucks Davos because that’s what he’s supposed to do; it’s what they’re both desperate for.

He kisses Davos because that’s what they want.

He jerks Davos off as he does because that’s what they want, too.

He says Davos’ name when he comes because he doesn’t have a god to invoke; the closest he has is the man under him, and here, Davos is the one chanting Stannis’ name like he’s praying.

Gods don’t beg. Stannis remembers that from his instruction as a child in the Faith of the Seven. The gods don’t ask men for their worship; they demand it.

Stannis holds on too tight.

Davos kisses his cheek, murmuring something soothing as he does, and Stannis’ breath stops in his throat.

He won’t set Davos aside like he cast off the Seven.

When Davos comes, he clutches at Stannis.

Stannis kisses the corner of his mouth, the hollow of his cheek, the tip of his nose. He doesn’t want to let go. He doesn’t want to pull out. He wants to stay like this, Davos held close in every way. He doesn’t want Davos to take his hand out of Stannis’ hair.

All his life, Stannis has done things he didn’t want to do. This night, he adds to the list.

But as he settles on his side next to Davos and watches Davos sigh happily, Davos' head turning so he can smile at Stannis, Stannis knows none of it will be overlooked.


	13. Seven principles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> m, modern, teacher/professor, established relationship

When Davos comes home from shopping, he finds Stannis rifling through Davos’ work bag. In another life, that might have made him nervous.

In this one, he simply says, “If you’re looking for the folder with the homework, it’s still on my desk.”

“Of course it is,” Stannis mutters to himself. He sounds distracted rather than annoyed, so Davos lets the words roll off him as Stannis just being grouchy.

Dinner- takeout Stannis must have splurged on as a surprise- is waiting on the table, so Davos heads in that direction rather than chase after his husband.

It only takes another minute for Stannis to join him and grumble, “I knew it.”

“What did you know?” Davos asks despite already knowing the answer.

Stannis frees a paper from the folder. There are two questions on it in size twenty-point.

_ What’s something you liked learning about in class this week? Why? _

It’s a trite question, but Davos likes to ask it. It’s helpful as a teacher to know what’s resonating, and, because he opted to teach seven year olds, there’s a good chance some of the answers will be completely incomprehensible but just as confident as the rest.

“The freshmen are riling you again,” he observes.

Stannis nods. “Your students have written helpful things. This child enjoyed the section about baby animals because they’re cute. A precise and age-appropriate answer.” He pulls out another paper. “This one enjoyed P.E. because running is…”

“Loads fun.” Davos knows the boy whose paper Stannis found. He’s left-handed and has a tendency to write his words twice, right on top of each other. Davos has a suspicion the boy thinks it’s helpful, and he isn’t in a hurry to point out it isn’t. “It’s a phrase he picked up from the girl next to him.”

Stannis nods to himself. “A logical reason, if grammatically questionable. Although, this isn’t formal writing and he’s using a colloquialism, so it stands up.”

He reaches for another paper, and Davos basks in the warm glow of Stannis’ way of relating to children. It’s peculiar and awkward and entirely Stannis.

Davos slips into his chair and reaches for the glass of water Stannis already poured for him and loaded up with ice cubes, just as Davos prefers it.

Stannis keeps flipping through the papers and nodding to himself as he takes his own chair. He’s clearly about to put the folder aside, but he pauses.

Brow furrowing, he asks, “Davos, are you still giving the children those sugary snacks?”

“You know I’m not. Why?”

Stannis doesn’t answer in his own words. Instead, he reads, “‘The mitten was big. I put the cat in it. Hahahaha-’”

Davos knows who wrote this one as confidently as he knows the haha will continue for the rest of the page- which Stannis, if left unstopped, will read out accurately.

“I’m a little disappointed you’ve been married to an elementary school teacher for this many years and still think that’s the product of food rather than the terrifying psyche of a human child.”

Reaching for the salad, he fills his bowl as Stannis digests that.

“This child has more creativity than my entire creative writing class,” Stannis sighs after a moment. “The class I didn’t want to take but was forced to because Robert thinks all writing is the same.”

Davos hums his agreement. He suspects there’s more to it than that- Robert is a terrible administrator and certainly isn’t fond of Stannis, but giving Stannis a freshman elective has the shape of malice, which Davos is more inclined to credit to Cersei- but he won’t argue when Stannis is in this sort of mood.

“Did your technical writing class do better?”

“Two students fell asleep and one person’s phone went off, but otherwise, it was fine.”

“Is a phone going off really that bothersome?” Davos asks. He’s seen it happen before, and Stannis seemed to take it with as much eye rolling as most other things.

“The ringtone was the ‘Rains of Castamere’,” Stannis grumbles. “An acapella version, at that.”

Davos snorts. He tries to hide it, but he makes the mistake of glancing at Stannis and only winds up making more noise.

“That old drinking song?” he asks. “Was the student our age?”

“Not quite. And he wasn’t a student.”

“Oh no.”

“Tyrion Lannister is conducting class reviews via his assistant,” Stannis says, his mouth turning down. “I don’t know why I stay there, Davos.”

“Besides the fact that you worked yourself to death for years to get a job at this college? And the fact that you’re a stubborn old goat who won’t let your brother’s needling force you out?”

Davos smiles and lays his hand on the table between them, palm up.

Stannis takes it, seemingly reflexively, and Davos’ smile grows. When they met, Stannis’ only reflex with touching was avoiding it. Years later, he still isn’t someone who kisses cheeks and sits too close just to be next to someone, and he never will be. Davos doesn’t need him to be. He likes this prickly man who dodges double kisses and extricates himself from hugs. He likes him so much, he fell in love with him.

“Why are you smiling?”

Davos smiles wider still. “I was just remembering how much I like you.”

That throws Stannis for a good minute. Davos takes advantage of it and scoops food onto his plate while Stannis recovers.

“It’s… good,” Stannis says, somewhere between suspicious and outright confused, “that you like me.”

Davos hums. “Very good, I’d say. I’m hoping to keep sharing our bed with you, and not liking you would complicate things rather quickly.”

“Is this what happens when you work with children for as long as you have? Do you cease to make sense, too?”

“That’s a very good theory. You should keep reading through those and put it to the test. There are some real gems in there. The one about lunch and the places it doesn’t belong is especially enlightened.”

Stannis’ brows rise. “I don’t suppose you’d let me take them with me?”

“Not without child and parental consent, but I doubt any in this class will mind.”

“Good.”

Back to frowning, Stannis looks down at his empty plate.

Davos recognizes the wrinkles around his mouth and pauses refilling his plate. “Stannis?”

“How did I get here?” Stannis looks up at him, and his features have gone hard the way they do when he’s wrestling with something. “I don’t like to be indulged, yet you indulge me, and it doesn’t upset me. I don’t like to be touched, yet you hold my hand, and I don’t want to pull away. I’m not a kind man, and I don’t want to be. But you look at me and I wonder… Perhaps I don’t have to be. Am I enough as I am? As a boy, I was certain I wasn’t. Even now, I doubt it.

“Yet here you sit, my own knight, come to find the worthy parts of me.”

He holds Davos’ right hand in his, Davos’ weaker hand clasped in his stronger one. It’s a frustration; they can’t simply eat and hold hands because one of them will dribble in himself.

It’s usually Stannis because Davos is at least mostly capable with his right hand.

“Why do you stay, Davos? The things I give you aren’t so great someone else couldn’t match them.”

Davos takes a sip from his glass as he contemplates the question.

Stannis is a talker. You wouldn’t think it, but put him on a topic he has thoughts about and he’ll talk for hours. Butting heads with him isn’t fun, least of all when Stannis has a lot to say. Davos has never enjoyed the part of their relationship where he has to fight with Stannis to remind him that he’s a better man than he thinks.

But he does it. He’ll do it until they’re cold in the ground because it’s true. Someone ought to love Stannis enough to see he needs to be argued with because he doesn’t trust the usual sorts of kindness, and someone ought to love him enough to take the time to be kind in a way he understands.

“You’re frustrating,” Davos says slowly. “I’ve never met someone as set on feeling slighted. You’re pushy and opinionated. I wish you’d accept that you fold laundry incorrectly and let me do it.”

He turns their hands over and thinks of his fear that his shortened fingers would repel people.

Stannis had looked at them, looked at Davos’ face, then said, in a tone Davos hadn’t yet known was wry rather than earnest, “Careful not to lose the rest before your benefits kick in. Although, I suppose children are called ankle biters rather than finger biters, so perhaps you’re safe.”

It isn’t a joke Davos usually enjoys from strangers, but Stannis was a handsome man in a nice suit who shook Davos’ hand a moment later as if he hadn’t said anything. It was so confusing, Davos didn’t have time to be offended.

“You’re a flawed man,” Davos continues, “but you’re the one I want. I split my lunch with you back when you were a mere fifth grade teacher because you were on your own, and I found myself befriending a man with far more warmth than he realized.

“Why do I stay? Because I like you. Because I love you. I can’t pinpoint any one reason- you’re what I want.”

He’s disappointed Stannis with his non-answer, as he does every time Stannis asks.

“Besides,” Davos adds, figuring he can’t be worse off than Stannis deciding he’d rather sleep on the edge of their bed tonight, “what good is a knight without a king?”

Stannis’ eyes go wide, and his hold on Davos’ hand gets tighter.

“Davos.”

“Yes, love?”

“Go to bed with me.”

Davos doesn’t ask if Stannis means right now. He can see that Stannis does, and as he reluctantly lets go of Stannis’ hand so they can get up, he makes the decision that for now, he isn’t going to think about whether this is a kink of Stannis’ or if Davos accidentally stumbled across something meaningful.

At the moment, all he’s going to do is follow Stannis into their bedroom and let Stannis have whatever he needs.

If that means pushing Davos onto his back and blowing him until Davos can’t think about anything other than Stannis, then it’s his.

If he needs Davos to finger him and fuck him until Stannis is the one who can’t think right, then it’s his.

If he’s going to strip down and spread his legs so Davos can blow him until Stannis comes on his face, then it’s his.

And if he needs Davos to lie behind him, a wall between Stannis and everything else, then that’s his, too.

Davos is his, and he always will be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello guess who doesn’t understand academia and came up with the lamest professor au out in the world


	14. And it's not even seven am

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> g, modern, established relationship

Davos startles awake in the middle of the night to someone shaking him. Heart in his throat, he bolts upright and looks around wildly for some sign of the intruder as he struggles to blink the dark room into focus.

He hasn’t quite managed it when he hears Shireen’s mournful voice say, “Davos, I can't sleep.”

She’s only six and still gets nightmares that keep her awake if she’s left alone. The doctors assured Stannis when she was four that the greyscale had gotten to her when she was too young to recall any of the experience, but Davos sometimes wonders if they can really know that. When she wakes up from one of her nightmares, Shireen is soaked with sweat and doesn’t speak for hours. She flinches away from her own shadow and her hand always seems to find its way to her scarred cheek. She won’t even go outside for anything short of force- or Stannis speaking sharply.

Davos has never heard her complain, but the dark circles under her eyes worry him. The exhaustion she never shakes worries him. The crushing silence that takes her place whenever someone mentions greyscale worries him.

But maybe he’s putting his own fears on her. He’s known men who were ostracized when they got infected. He’s seen the agony on the faces of the sick as they were forced from their homes by their own families. He’s even seen the Stone Men themselves a few times, their faces hardened, their features distorted as thoroughly as their humanity was ripped from them.

That Shireen could have been sent to live among them turns his stomach.

“Come on,” Davos tells her. “Up you get.”

He pulls down the blankets so after she crawls over him she can slide into place in the space in the center of the bed. “Do you want something to drink? A little warm milk?”

“No, thank you,” she whispers as her knee catches his elbow. She apologizes for it, but he waves it aside. It’s nighttime. Apologies only delay their return to sleep.

Davos feels the bed shift as Shireen makes herself comfortable. He tugs the blankets back into place the moment her feet catch his thigh, her skin cold even through his clothes.

If he’s lucky, he’ll be able to fall back to sleep in a moment.

He waits, though, challenging his luck and fighting the temptation to close his eyes and let himself fall back to sleep, until Shireen falls still and her breathing slows.

She finally drifts off, her breathing steady, and Davos can almost taste the wave of exhaustion waiting to pull him back to sleep.

“Is that Shireen?” Stannis asks from the other side of the bed. His voice is barely less clear than it was when he’d discussed Cersei’s  latest attempt to undercut Stannis.

A little bit of Davos resents him for it.

The rest of him is too glad not to be sleeping alone anymore to care.,f

“It is,” Davos replies.

Stannis makes a thoughtful noise. “She has to learn to sleep on her own.”

“And she will.”

“Davos.”

“Do you want me to take her back to her room?” Davos asks. He doesn’t want to do it, but if Stannis wants it, he’ll do it. Unlike Davos, who misses the chaos of his boys running around and waking him up too early, Stannis has set rules about what happens in his bedroom and in his bed. Davos isn’t even sure how he’s allowed in when Stannis isn’t actively seeking his counsel.

Sleeping beside Stannis isn’t an issue. Davos doesn’t move or make noise in his sleep, and he doesn’t touch Stannis. That’s all Stannis cares about.

The blankets rustle slightly, the only sound that proves he’s still awake, and Stannis takes a deep breath.

“No. You’ll only fall asleep waiting for her, and we continue riding tomorrow. I can’t have you starting the day sore.”

Relief washes over Davos. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Don’t be cute,” Stannis admonishes. “Now go back to sleep. I need you to navigate for me. I haven’t been to Highgarden in years, and if we don’t arrive promptly, my brother will hound me for it to no end.”

Davos lets himself smile at Stannis’ prickling. “I’ll be ready, love.”

Stannis’ reply is an attempt at patting Davos’ leg without turning to look at him, and Davos smiles to himself as he intercepts Stannis’ hand before it makes contact with Shireen instead. He guides it away so he can brush a kiss to Stannis’ knuckles. He’s already drifting off before he releases Stannis’ hand.

They’re going to reach Renly in plenty of time. Davos already mapped out the route, and Shireen very kindly showed him how to print it. She’s going to have a great time with Loras and Renly. She loves flowers.

Maybe Davos will test his luck and see if he can find a bouquet that won’t make Stannis turn his nose up...


	15. chorus of torments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> t, historical, pirates/black sails

“Captain Stannis Baratheon is the most ruthless captain on the sea,” a man says, his voice cutting across the low hum of conversation. He’s perched by the fire, pitching his voice the way all good storytellers do. “Legend has it, he was a Navy man once. That’s why he’s so good at destroying Her Majesty’s ships- he knows their strategies, and he knows how to run them down if they don’t yield.”

Davos sits up, intrigued despite himself. Stannis’ history with the Navy isn’t well-known.

A few of the men in the tavern look over as well.

The storyteller looks them over from the depths of his cowl. “Don’t be fooled into thinking he’s just another Navy man turned fortune-seeker, my friends. He isn’t ‘just’ anything. He’s got a vendetta- for what, I cannot tell you. But this I do know: he won’t rest while Queen Cersei sends her ships here to battle us from our homes.”

More men look over at the man; Davos watches their expressions sharply.

“He’s got the look in his eye of a man out for blood. Cold though he seems, there’s fury burning inside him, a fire the likes of which would reduce mortal men like you and I to ash. He’s smart enough to take on a fleet, and he’s got the heart of a man who’d do it on his own if he has to.

“Keep watch for the ship that flies a black flag bearing a white stag with a crown about its neck. She’ll sink you at the first sign you aren’t loyal to her cause. The captain has none of the stag’s grace, you see. Captain Baratheon is a man who holds his grudges close, and he’ll turn the sea red with blood if that’s what it will take to satisfy them.

“His sights are set on England. If you have any sense, you’ll join him- or else risk being run aground by him.”

The last is too much of an admonition with too few teeth for the crowd. Sailors love a tale, but they don’t like to be told what to do, much less by a man they don’t know on behalf of a man they barely know. They snort and guffaw and turn away from the fire. There are other, more interesting tales to be spun.

Davos lets them finish rearranging themselves before he makes his way to the man.

“That was quite a show,” he says amicably. “And this is an admirable disguise. I almost didn’t recognize you, Lady Melisandre.”

Melisandre sighs. The false beard she’s hiding behind is coming loose by her ear, but Davos doesn’t bother pointing that out. “At least you waited for them to leave, I suppose.”

“You’re pushing too hard,” Davos says with a shake of his head. “If you want to make Stannis into a figure for these men to fear, you have to use what they already fear, not try to teach them new fears.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “What do you mean?”

“All this detail about where he comes from does nothing to make him frightening. Forget that he was in the Navy- betraying the Empire is nothing impressive here.” He sighs. “Your threat takes too long. Sailors fear the sea because it can change quickly and they’re helpless against it.”

“So you want me to tell them the captain will drown them? That’s the only thing they fear?” Her mouth shifts into a frown. “That seems unlikely to get them to join him meaningfully.”

Davos feels the corners of his own mouth lift into something like a smile. “Tell them he’s their reckoning, a man who knows what’s owed and has come to collect. All of us owe something to someone- if not to another man, then to the sea. We’re all debtors here.”

Melisandre narrows her eyes but doesn’t argue. That’s better than Davos had thought he’d get, and he can feel the start of something that feels almost like hope.

As he gets ready to return to his seat, though, he pauses. “One other thing, my lady.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re speaking to men who live on the ocean. If there’s one thing they don’t fear, it’s fire.”

xx

“You look after your captain very well,” Snow says. He’s supposedly down in the belly of the shift to study how Davos divvies up the shares of coin now that the loot the _ Dragonstone _commandeered has been traded for coin. The boy doesn’t have the eye for being a quartermaster, though. He’s too softhearted as well. Any crew would run wild over him.

Still, Davos likes him. Stannis does as well, however reluctantly. That’s rare enough on its own.

“Why?” Snow presses when Davos doesn’t answer.

Davos shrugs. “Why do I look after Stannis? He’s my captain. I look after all of the crew, of which he is a part. What else would I do?”

“I’ve seen quartermasters who didn’t care about their captains half as much as you care about Captain Baratheon.”

“And did they remain quartermasters for very long?”

Snow looks away, and Davos feels a pang of regret. He hadn’t meant to snap at the boy.

“A good quartermaster bridges the gap between a captain and his crew,” he explains, keeping his tone gentle. “Yes, keeping the numbers and connections are part of it, but if I couldn’t keep the men’s faith in Stannis steady- and if I couldn’t make Stannis acknowledge what the men need- the rest wouldn’t matter.

“Some captains need to be reined in. Stannis is one of them. But it isn’t avarice that drives him. He’s more complex than that, and keeping his mood balanced benefits us all.”

Snow digests that as Davos considers his tentative divisions.

“It’s more than that,” Snow says after keeping quiet for long Davos had started to think he might have given up the topic. “You like being his quartermaster.”

“I do. He’s a good captain.”

“You like him, too, though. As a man.” He clears his throat and quickly adds, “He’s an impressive captain, of course, and I’m honored he’s found me worthy of his time. It’s just…”

Davos lets himself smile. “He isn’t very good at being friendly. I know.” Setting the paper aside for the moment, Davos gives the boy a patient look. “There’s more to liking a person than how nice their words are. Stannis has a good heart. He’s got a sense of justice most men wouldn’t want. If I ever found myself in a bad place, he’s the first man whose help I’d seek.”

“And you think he’d give it?”

“If he felt I was due it.”

Snow frowns. “Shouldn’t loyalty be mutual? If you’d die for him, shouldn’t he die for you?”

“You really are Ned Stark’s boy,” Davos says, shaking his head but letting himself smile to lessen the sting. “Honor and loyalty are more complicated than that. Stannis isn’t less loyal to me for having other, higher loyalties, and he isn’t dishonorable for having to make hard choices. When you have a crew of your own, you’ll understand it better.”

Snow pulls a face.

Davos pats his shoulder consolingly. “I know you hate when I say that, but it’s true. There are things we just can’t understand until we’ve experienced them.”

“If you insist…”

“I do. Now go find that friend of yours, the one who thinks he’s being stealthy about hiding that girl in the brothel. If they’re going to come with us to Boston, they need to be on the ship before dawn tomorrow.”

“Sam,” Snow tells him. “And I like you, Davos, but he and Gilly are very important to me.”

He lets his voice go quiet, and Davos has to fight a smile. That’s a trick Stannis uses. Snow hasn’t quite gotten the hang of it yet, but he will soon.

“We’ll look after them.”

“But Stannis-”

“Captain Baratheon dislikes prostitution,” Davos corrects, leaning on Stannis’ title. “Disguising her as you did was clever, but Stannis saw through it the first time he saw her.” With some help from Davos and Melisandre, but Snow doesn’t need to know that. “Even if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t punish her just for being on his ship. He dislikes drunkenness, but you haven’t seen me get keelhauled for drinking with the crew, have you?” Davos rubs the top of his head. “Stannis isn’t a monster. Your friend and his woman will have a long, boring journey to Massachusetts. You have my word. Now go- I have things to do, and you’re distracting me.”

Snow nods and runs off.

Davos returns to the task of dividing the fruits of their thieving, though his attention keeps slipping to the last time he had a drink around Stannis.

He shakes off the memory. It won’t do him any good- remembering when he has work to do or remembering at all.

xx

Stannis’ long coat billows and snaps in the wind. Despite the darkness of the night and Stannis’ preference for dark clothes, Davos can see the movement clearly.

Alone, Stannis stands as much a figurehead as the rampant stag on the front of their ship.

He’d still been a Navy man when Davos met him- angry as Stannis had been, he’d thought like a lieutenant, held himself upright as if he’d fall apart if his shoulders rolled forward, surrounded himself with an air of formality. A product of relentless instruction on his place in the world and what he was owed- what he owed in return and to whom- bearing and man were barely different entities.

He’s older now, but for all he’s turned against England and its pretender queen, he holds himself with the same sharp posture.

“Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

Davos chuckles and finishes crossing the deck to stand beside his captain.

“I could ask you the same.”

“There are too many things to plan.”

“Are there?” Davos counters easily. “Last I heard, you’d planned all you could. The rest is in our enemies’ hands and in our allies’. And the sea’s.”

Stannis folds his arms across his chest and glares harder at the dark, moonlit waters ahead.

“Melisandre said you scolded her for her storytelling,” he says.

“She’s used to charming people on the land. Sailors take a different sort of touch.”

“And what sort is that?” Stannis scoffs.

Davos doesn’t take the skepticism personally. Stannis is a sailor himself, though he doesn’t seem to realize it. No man who commands ships as deftly Stannis commands his mismatched fleet of pirate ships can be anything else.

“One that plays off our superstitious nature. You shake your head, but you’ve seen it to be true,” Davos adds. “Out here, we’re helpless. We have rules to keep what order we can, and we make rules to keep ourselves sane when that order crumbles. Tie a knot a certain way and maybe the sea will let you see another dawn. Keep women off the ship and maybe you’ll see your girl back home again.”

“Is that what drives you, Davos? Returning to Marya?”

Smothering his surprise that Stannis remembers her name, Davos shakes his head. “We have a good time together, and maybe we’ll have a family together one day, but there are other people to meet, other good times to be had.”

He doesn’t expect Stannis to care about this. Stannis walks through brothels like a ship with a strong wind. Even the men, whom Davos suspects catch Stannis’ eye more than the women, don’t tempt him.

He doesn’t expect Stannis to say, “I’m engaged.”

Davos looks at him sharply, but Stannis doesn’t look away from the water.

“‘Was engaged’ is more appropriate, I suppose. I doubt the Florents are interested in marrying their daughter to a pirate.”

“Your brother’s doing?” Davos asks.

Stannis nods. “If he hadn’t married Cersei and shamed her until she had him killed, I would still be a good Englishman. This place would be another land to conquer.” He turns toward Davos. “You and I would be in opposition to each other.”

“We would,” Davos agrees. “It’s difficult to imagine a world where I don’t serve you, but I suppose that’s how it would be. England doesn’t forgive smugglers.”

“Not without breaking their necks first.”

The corner of Stannis’ mouth twitches, and Davos snorts, recognizing the gallows humor for what it is.

“Simply defeating Cersei will leave England in need of a monarch,” Davos says slowly. “You'll reclaim it for your family, of course.”

“You wonder what will happen to the pirates.”

“It had crossed my mind.”

“I don’t know.” Stannis’ fists clench. “There’s no justice here, Davos. They won’t give up the lives they’ve fought so hard to build, and I can’t let them continue as they are. Even the ones I’d most like to keep with me… I don’t foresee a life of minding manners for any of them.”

“Perhaps the English court could do with some ill-mannered members?”

Stannis shakes his head, but one side of his mouth lifts in a crooked smile. “It would be a punishment for our men. Trading the sea for the life that awaits me… No one else needs to make the sacrifice.”

It’s true that Davos has rarely seen Stannis as alive as he is when the sea is troubling them and he’s matching his will against hers, but he hadn’t realized how much Stannis. He should have. Stannis talks about times when he’s been far removed from the sight of land like other men talk about returning home.

The only home Stannis will accept now is the palace in England- whichever one the king lives in. Davos isn’t sure which that is.

If he’d never been exiled, he could have stayed in the shadows, the forgotten brother to a beloved king.

It was that same exile that brought Stannis to Davos, though; without it, Davos might have heard the name Stannis Baratheon, but he never would have known Captain Baratheon.

Without Cersei’s betrayal, Davos never would have met this man made of flint and tinder, ready to burn himself and everything around him to ash to right a wrong and bring himself a position he doesn’t want to take.

Without Stannis’ exile, Davos never would have met him, and if he hadn’t met Stannis, Davos wouldn’t have fallen in love with him

Letting go of Stannis will hurt, but Davos is a sailor. The sea gives, and the sea takes. It gave him Stannis, and it will take Stannis from him. This is the way of the world. He can’t complain.

“Melisandre also said you told her the key to gathering men to me is making me into something sailors fear,” Stannis says abruptly. “A debt collector, I believe?”

“Something like that,” Davos agrees absently, remembering a story he was told once about a man who came and went without a trace, seemingly made of mist.

“You know I dislike vagueness. Explain the myth you intend to turn me into.”

Davos shakes off the memory of the old captain.

“It seems to me, one of the reasons men are wary of going to church is they’re told God sees all they do,” he explains. “All their faults, their failings, their secrets- according to the Church, God sees them and weighs them and judges them. The thought that nothing you do is yours alone, that you cannot hide yourself from God’s unblinking eye… It’s unsettling even for good men.”

“And pirates aren’t good men,” Stannis finishes.

“We are not,” Davos agrees. “We aren’t trying to make you into God with this, of course. We’re simply going to remind them of the fear that chokes them when they think about Him. Make them wake up in the middle of the night after laying with women they haven’t married, in beds they’ve bought with stolen coin, sweat-soaked and afraid of something they name. But they’ll have a name soon enough. Your name.”

Stannis doesn’t reply immediately, and Davos looks away, his own eyes drawn to the waves.

When Stannis does speak, his voice is a rasp. “Whatever comes, I won’t forget what you’ve done for me, Davos. Starks don’t have a monopoly on long memories.”

The name means nothing to Davos, but he barely notices it. His attention is fixed fully on Stannis’ face- on the familiar, stubborn set of his jaw; his delicate nose, somehow still unbroken; the sharp look in his eyes; the flat line of his lips.

If there’s a worse man for Davos to fall in love with, he hopes they never meet.

“There are no kings out here,” he replies. “But if there really is a rightful king in England, he must be you. And if England must have you, then you’ll have the throne it owes you. I can see to that much.”

Stannis looks down at him for longer than he should.

Davos’ heart begins to beat too quickly.

“A shame I can’t compel you to come with me.” Stannis doesn’t look away. “You’ve given me more loyalty than all the noble houses combined. What would I have done without you, I wonder?”

“You would have found your way.”

Stannis’ lips twitch. “I wonder.”

He can’t really mean- “Captain?”

“I’ll miss you, Davos. You’ve become like a limb to me; I’ll feel the space you used to occupy long after we part.”

Davos swallows. “So long as I live, I’ll be your man.”

Stannis nods, understanding the limitations of Davos’ promise, and Davos wishes they had the ship to themselves, just for a moment. Just long enough for Davos to feel Stannis’ beard against his palm, against his face.

The legend is still coming into being, though, and the creeping terror of Stannis’ reputation would fall to pieces if he were no longer a single, implacable creature.

“We have a long journey ahead of us,” Stannis says. His voice has more than its usual rasp, but his arms are crossed over his chest, as far from Davos as he’s ever been.

“Best sleep while we can,” Davos agrees. His own voice comes out rough.

Stannis nods. “I’ll see you at breakfast, then.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Their finite time together grows closer to its conclusion with every meal. Soon, Stannis will be returned to the world he came from, or dead in the pursuit of it, and Davos will be a quartermaster on one ship lost in a fleet of pirates once more.

Swallowing hard, Davos follows Stannis below deck and heads for his own cabin.

The knowledge that Stannis is only a wall away somehow makes his bed colder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we’ve made it- the last chapter. thanks for coming along with me!


End file.
